Planet Poetry

Send us Fan MailFabulous stories, overheard conversation and a panoply of characters? It's the sound of Planet Poetry basking in the glowing Technicolor of Martina Evans's funny, moving and brilliantly inventive new collection American Mules (Carcanet). Meanwhile a  croaky-with-Covid Robin props herself up on one elbow to re-read a favourite collection by Kei Miller. As Cop26 is in the news, Peter considers eco-poetry in the light of work by novelist Richard Powers and philosopher Timothy Morton's 'All Art is Ecological'. But wait... Where's that self-promotional trumpet? The new website at planetpoetrypodcast.com is finally UP! (And if you could tell absolutely everyone about it, that really would be awfully decent of you.)  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 MailWant to face the future with strength and empathy? Of course you do! So hop aboard Planet Poetry and jet over to New Orleans to meet Ashanti Anderson and hear from her exceptional debut, Black Under.  We'll also feature Robin's encounter with the work of Scottish poet George Mackay Brown, whose centenary is celebrated by Dark Horse magazine, while Peter is won over by the excellence of The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus. Plus we praise the fabulous The History of English podcast by Kevin Stroud, and Dave Bonta's Via Negativa blog... All this and a couple of severed heads for the win. Bargain.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 MailKerpow! Planet Poetry is back for a second season, replete with box-fresh poetical guests, an assortment of musings on the muses – and even a new intro tune.We whiz across the Atlantic to meet Kim Addonizio and hear about her Vulcan mind meld with Shakespeare and Dante - and we can guarantee she will transform how you think about Florida forever. Kim's poems are featured in her Bloodaxe collection Wild Nights.  Fresh from a damp sojourn in Wales, Peter talks about being thunderstruck by R.S. Thomas and reads a poem from The Collected Later Poems. While Robin admires Shane McCrae’s collection Sometimes I Never Suffered.  It's great to be back. We missed you!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 MailIs that a fanfare of brazen trumpets? Why? Well, it's our season finale! Join our audience with the regal Rishi Dastidar who tells us about the declaration of sovereignty made by his eponymous hero Saffron Jack  - a hugely impressive long poem, glittering with biting satire, postcolonial thinking, humour and logical inevitability. Then, a tad wistfully, Robin and Peter wind up Season 1, with your poetic pals taking a few moments to reflect on what they’ve learnt from making seventeen bedazzling episodes of your favourite podcast. Thank you for listening! We'll 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! 

Send us Fan MailWelcome back, poppets! Join us as we peer into the dreamlike cabinet of curiosities that is Helen Ivory’s The Anatomical Venus  where women are labelled  witches and hysterics, pathologised by medical science and surreally transformed into demure models with visible innards. Meanwhile, Robin enjoys the primal force of Nobel-winning poet Thomas Tranströmer in The Half-Finished Heaven and Peter feels improved after experiencing the warmth and humanity of Robert Hamberger's Blue Wallpaper. Plus your podcast pals hear about a poetry rejection received a mere two-and-a-half years after submission. Enjoy! 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 MailIs it a bird? Is it a plane? Planet Poetry is swooping through the air with Hawthornden Prize winner John McCullough tucked under its origami wing. John entices us with his three poetry collections: The Frost Fairs (Salt Publishing), Spacecraft and Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins), and praises the virtues of playful language and learning your craft. We'll take in roof-removing storms, vanished Old English letters and Lady Gaga.  Plus Peter is enticed into Babylonian shenanigans by The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Robin beguiles us with how to extricate yourself  a magical debut collection from Laura Theis. 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 MailTo publish or not to publish? Join us as we venture into the shadowy world of poetry publishing. Do instapoets endanger traditional publishing or help it to quietly flourish? Is the whole thing shapeshifting into something new and exciting? The person clutching the torch and heading into the dark is poet and academic JT Welsch who has written the first book-length study of the contemporary poetry industry. And the good news is it's not all bad news. Meanwhile Peter is still wistful about seizing the means of poetry production and trying to ignite a revolution, while Robin confesses that it's all about seeing her poems in glorious print. Plus, we'll dip a tentacle into the surreal world of  Guillaume Apollinaire and Robin enjoys an irreverent poem that stealth bombed its way into The North.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! In this episode we encounter esteemed poet, writer and scholar LeAnne Howe — who talks about the extraordinary Norton anthology of Native Nations poetry ‘When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through’ she edited with Joy Harjo and Jennifer Elise Foerster which highlights the untold stories of people from the Native Nations. She also gives us an insight into how her Chocktaw heritage enriches her own poetry. Plus Robin and Peter share their opinions about a venerable UK poetry magazine, terrible haikus and Nothing in particular.  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 MailWelcome to our translation special! Join Robin and Peter as we take a deep dive into the  Sarah Maguire Prize 2020. We ask Chairman of the judges, the Persian poet and translator, Alireza Abiz about poetry from Iraq, Korea, Japan, Mexico, and Syria and and ponder the nature of time, Mandarin and poetry with the legendary Chinese poet Yang Lian. Plus we speak to his long-term translator Brian Holton to celebrate the work of the translator.  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 MailEnigmatic hey? That's Planet Poetry for you. Welcome back!  This week we are delighted to hear from exiled New Yorker Kathryn Maris who shares her strange and sometimes hilarious tall tales (full of unheroic and unreliable protagonists) from her collection The House with Only an Attic and a Basement.  Plus Robin gets a bit starry and stripy reading US magazines Rattle and Poetry -- and uncovers a can of worms.  Peter, meanwhile, thinks he's glimpsed poetry's gleaming future, and it's bleeping brilliant! Robin remains strangely underwhelmed.   Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!