Planet Poetry

Send us Fan MailIf you have endured a childhood overshadowed by profound betrayal and abuse, how do you learn to trust again? What kind of bravery must this take?  We  feature  Clare Best reading from her poetry collections, Excisions and Each Other and also discuss her memoir The Missing List - written during the last illness of the father who had abused her as a child – described as ‘an important, essential text in the context of the #MeToo movement’. Plus we enjoy an early glimpse into her poised and beautiful collection Beyond the Gate due later this year from Worple Press.Meanwhile Robin and Peter wonder aloud if writing a novel changes your approach to poetry, and ask why there aren't more poems about work and jobs. We see how this is done with a gorgeous poem from Factory Girls an intriguing collection from Japanese poet  Takako Arai. 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 MailKeep the carriage curtains open as we  chug into the post-industrial midlands of The Black Country. We're in the company of Liz Berry as she coins resonant new myths from her midland's dialect word hoard. But next stop is Liverpool, following orphaned Eliza The Home Child  as she sets off for Nova Scotia in Berry's heartbreaking, just-published novel in verse about a girl sent to work as an indentured servant. Peter and Robin also report back on the winning poems they heard at  the awards ceremony for the UK's National Poetry Competition 2022 -- and Robin is inspired by an essay from Forgive the Language by Katy Evans-Bush. 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 MailStrap on your toughest boots.  Now dodge the speeding cars as we match strides with Robert Hamberger.  We discuss two works: his exceptional poetry collection Blue Wallpaper and his memoir A Length of Road -- recalling a time when Robert (facing a life crisis) retraced the footsteps of the 'peasant poet' John Clare who had, in 1841, escaped an asylum in Epping Forest. Robert walked the same 80 miles as John Clare,  who had walked to Northamptonshire in the vain hope of finding Mary, his first love. And Robin has been enjoying Ian Duhig's masterful New and Selected Poems  learning en route what can be made to rhyme with Castor and Pollux, while Peter tarries in the twilight of Thomas Gray's  Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard -- 'mopeing owl' and all.  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 MailStop polishing that halo for a moment and listen to this! It's Mark Fiddes reading from his Live Cannon collection *Other Saints Are Available - a series of vivid and memorable footnotes to an increasingly polarised world... All via men roaring into flame from the neck up,  the haircuts of Burnley defenders, brash parakeets and much more.And what do you do, as a poetry lover, when you just can't face reading another poem? Read something about poetry of course. Peter barges through Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry essays by the fine US poet Jane Hirshfield -- while Robin entertains 'The Hatred of Poetry' by Ben Lerner.     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! And join your Planet Poetry pals as we bravely embark on a new year. Strap in beside a child of six -- flying away from her family, culture and language -- to arrive, wordlessly, in a new country and a new life.  Mimi Khalvati shares poems from her exquisite Carcanet collection Afterwardness and relives the journey that utterly changed the course of her life.Robin and Peter also discuss the T.S.Eliot Prize winner  Sonnets for Albert by Anthony Joseph,  published by Bloomsbury Poetry  and rediscover the magnificent faber collection Elegies by Douglas Dunn.  Finally, your hosts summon all their courage to share their fragile writerly hopes  for the new year. Happy 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! 

Send us Fan MailWhat's that? The airy caper of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and their mates? No it's Planet Poetry bringing you Matthew Stewart, who - by some uncanny podcast magic - is sheltering from the sweltering heat of the Spanish sun. His collection The Knives of Villalejo provides clues to what could have coaxed a poet from the cul-de-sacs of suburban Surrey to the vineyards of Extremadura.Amid the festive banter, you'll find your podcast pals discussing a Writer's Advent Calendar from Jo Bell  and seasonal favourites Snow by Louis McNeice and [little tree] by e. e. cummings. Thank you very much for listening to us in 2022. Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and an absolutely splendiferous New Year! See you in January.   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 MailWhat's that popping and blazing from your favourite podcast device? A plethora of lightbulb moments, that's what.  This episode features an in depth conversation with Sarah Barnsley whose bravura first collection The Thoughts has been published by Smith | Doorstop.  With immense originality she deals with the intrusive thoughts that are a hallmark of  obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)  as well as recovery, love and White Bears.    Meanwhile Robin tries to unfold the mysteries of Black Fens viral  a poem sequence full of musicality by Frances Presley. Peter tells us how he has fallen under the siren spell of Stigmata a collection of essays by Hélèn Cixous published by Routledge. Plus there's the usual poetry based banter, and a delicate whiff of roasted coffee beans.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 MailHere we go again, blazing through the vast firmaments... We go all starry and stripy this week as we meet Shane McCrae - one of the US's most celebrated new poets - to be awed by the Miltonic vastness of an imagination that electrifies his collections  Cain Named The Animal and Sometimes I Never Suffered.Meanwhile Robin continues the epic theme in St Lucia, by embarking on Omeros by Derek Walcott, and Peter, enervated after a house move  is re-enthused about poetry as a whole thanks to On Poetry: Reading, Writing & Working with Poems by Jackie Wills. 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 MailForging manfully through cyberspace just to be with you... Robin and Peter are back with another cracking episode featuring  Peter Raynard, who guides us through his elegiac, furious and moving book Manland from Nine Arches Press. We'll hear how Peter Raynard's experiences of growing up working class in Coventry has stimulated this bracing poetic reappraisal of what it means to be a man -- from toxic masculinity to little kisses. Plus your poddy pals find out what Jacques Prévert was scribbling on the tablecloths, and catch up with the latest editions of The Frogmore Papers, and Prole.   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 tantalising twinkle on your favourite device? Relax! It’s Planet Poetry surging back with Season Three! Onboard for Episode 1 is  Kim Moore, talking about All The Men I Never Married, from Seren — a powerful work... Compelling, complex and empathetic. No wonder it is currently Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. Plus your favourite podcasters discuss their holiday reading — Robin touches on Helen Dunmore's Inside The Wave,  England's Green by Zaffar Kunial, and Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar. Peter mentions The Axion Esti  by Odysseus Elytis and then talks sheer nonsense — unapologetically  galumphing into Lewis Caroll’s Jabberwocky. It's great to be back! Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!