In this episode, I talk to the poet David Harmer about Dylan Thomas’s ‘Poem in October’ and his own sequence ‘White Peak Histories.’ In our conversation, David discusses his connections with Thomas. He explains why ‘Poem in October’ (and ‘late Thomas’) appeals to him in particular. He talks about the shape and feel of the…
Posted on 28th October 2024 in NewsIn this episode, poet Katharine Towers discusses Elizabeth Bishop’s poems ‘Sandpiper’ and ‘Jerónimo’s House’ and her own poem ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph.’ In the interview, Katharine explains how she went from being a prose writer to a poet in part from reading Elizabeth Bishop’s poems. She examines the qualities of Bishop’s writing through an extended…
Posted on 14th October 2024 in NewsIn this episode, poet Mark Pullinger discusses Shinkichi Takahashi’s poem ‘Sparrow in Winter’ (translated by Lucien Stryk) and two of Mark’s poems: ‘Magus’ and ‘Untitled’. In the interview, we talk about Mark’s introduction to Zen poetry – and Zen haiku in particular – through his discovery of Shinkichi Takahashi’s work. We examine the multifaceted qualities…
Posted on 30th September 2024 in NewsIn this episode, poet Fay Musselwhite discusses David Jones’s book-length poem In Parenthesis and her own sequence ‘Memoir of a Working River’ from her collection Contraflow. In the interview, we talk about how Fay came to Jones’s poem – a book that follows soldiers’ long trajectory toward the Somme battlefield, but has so much more…
Posted on 16th September 2024 in NewsGathered together on one audio player, here are all the broadcasts from series one of my podcast. In each episode I invited a poet to introduce a poem by an author who had influenced his, her or their own approach to writing. The poet discussed the importance of this work, and went on to talk…
Posted on 10th March 2024 in News