Planet Poetry

Send us Fan MailHear Rory Waterman  describe his experience of being stuck in quarantine in Korea, where (as well as doing press ups) he used his time to begin his fourth collection Come Here to This Gate,  from Carcanet Poetry. He tells us about Korea's DMZ, hilarious Lincolnshire folk tales, and we explore an exceptionally moving sequence about the death of his troubled father. Also... Peter belatedly discovers the translation by Martyn Crucefix of Raine Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies.  Spoiler: it is fantastic.  And Robin remembers the hugely creative Ann Perrin who sadly passed last month (May 2024).  Robin also uncovers these essential statistics: which insects are most mentioned in Haiku? Admit it. It's kept you awake at night, hasn't it?  Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailSilent faces and displaced lives.  Seni Seneviratne gives voice to overshadowed Black children, exotic pages and servants in the portraits of nobility and the mercantile class in 18th Century paintings. Other of her poised and beautiful poems, from The Go-Away Bird from Peepal Tree Press, are infused with bird imagery, and the migrations of travellers going deeper into themselves. Meanwhile Robin jumps into the world of online poetry magazines, looking at the long-running Ink Sweat & Tears, and one of the newer mags Propel Magazine. And Peter is intrigued by Victoria Kennefick's latest collection Egg/Shell from Carcanet - a passionate book in two halves, exploring early motherhood and miscarriage, and the impact of a spouse's gender transition and the dissolution of a marriage. Photo of Seni Seneviratne by Sam Hardwick at Ledbury PoetrySupport the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailStaring at the mark on the wall where that painting once hung? Wondering why the moon, seen by others, has been hidden from you?  You've entered the world of Absence (Cheerio Poetry 2024) by Ali Lewis. He guides us through this exceptional first collection,  from the painful ache of lost love, to the possibilities unleashed by running over a pheasant.Robin talks about poetry & walking, via Robert Frost's poem Acquainted with the Night.  We also venture into the dark and terrifying beauty of  Paul Celan,  and read Celan's poem Todesfuge, Death Fugue. And we happen across Poetry Peter, Peter Smith, a fisherman and proto-performace poet  in Anstruther and Cellardyke - and Peter Kenny reads one of his poems... excruciatingly badly. Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailHop aboard. No time to idle in green pastures here, instead let’s follow Roy Mc Farlane as he guides us through his collection Living by Troubled Waters from Nine Arches Press weaving the toxic legacy of slavery in the complexity and warmheartedness of his own personal history.  Plus we glance at a gorgeous poem, Leaves, from Ursula K. Le Guin,  mull over the latest winner of the UK’s National Poetry Competition, The Time I Was Mugged in New York City, by Imogen Wade, and stroke our chins over idea of magazines long-listing their contributors.   Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailWe’re back with global ambitions for World Poetry Day. First we skip over to  Dublin to interview Seán Hewitt about his gorgeous second collection Rapture’s Road, published 2024 by Cape. Enriched by the traditions of Irish poetry, Seán’s work speaks unflinchingly to contemporary issues as well as conjuring moments of absolute beauty from language.  Robin and Peter learn more about International Poetry Day, and Robin discovers a fabulous poem by Netherlands poet Marjolijn van Heemstra. Meanwhile Peter has immersed himself in the pages of Living in Language, International reflections for the practising poet, edited by Erica Hesketh, and finds himself wowed by South Korea’s Lee Hyemi, and Somali-born  Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailA classic interview from the archive: Inua Ellams talking about his extraordinary book The Actual  (Penned in the Margins, 2020), a powerful, personal and often very funny collection that pokes a sharp stick at the legacy of British Empire, foolish machismo, hero culture, relationships and much more.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailGo on. Press the button. Paul Stephenson guides us through a choice of his varied, formally diverse and moving elegies in his Carcanet collection Hard Drive -- written in the years following his partner's sudden death -- and find a curiously life-affirming  exploration of grief and its aftermath.  Robin and Peter also make their way across Europe (simultaneously in both the 21st and the 19th Centuries) in the company of Janet Sutherland whose The Messenger House  (Shearsman Books) is a highly-ambitious  weaving of history, poetry and travelogue. At the border, we flag down Charlotte Gann to examine her  Cargo  -- a characteristically brilliant new pamphlet by  published by Mariscat Press.  And, tugging at the long roots of prosimetra, we find Boethius, Dante, David Jones and a 12th Century bloke called Hugh of Bologna.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailWe are back and delighted to bring you more wonderful poetry in 2024.  So let's illuminate the new year with Tamar Yoseloff, whose  long engagement with visual art  has created a poetry that blazes out against a black backdrop. We’ll hear poems from two Seren collections  A Formula for Night her New and Selected poems and  The Black Place (2019). Plus we will get a preview of her forthcoming collection Belief Systems from Nine Arches.And we discuss the highly impressive Self-Portrait as Othello Carcanet Poetry (2023) by Jason Allen-Paisant a deserved winner of this year’s TS Eliot prize -- and talk about a little known scribbler called William Shakespeare.Photo of Tamar Yoseloff by Stephen Wells.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailHappy New Year! We're on our festive break, but wanted to share with you another classic interview from the archive. Here's Kim Moore talking about her Forward Prize-winning collection 'All the Men I Never Married' from Seren Books.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! 

Send us Fan MailPsssst! Here's a moment of reprieve from the festive frenzy... Follow Jane Clarke wobbling on an oak log slick with frost, then she smooths us down a butter path to a place of poetry. Here we revel in the beauty and quiet authority of Jane's collection  A Change in the Air shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot prize among others.Peter finds listening to a Christmas carol to be a slippery slope to goblin greengrocers and secretive Christina Rossetti, while Robin rouses the old possum and revisits Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot. And, as if that weren't enough, we neatly put a bow in the red ribbon of the show, with Congregation, a Christmas poem from Jeremy PageThanks so much for listening to Planet Poetry in 2023. Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone. Here's wishing you a Peaceful New Year!   Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!