The Poetry Exchange

Welcome back to The Poetry Exchange!It's very special to be here with you all again.We're excited to be returning with something a bit different...a 'mini-series' of conversations over the coming months, which we're calling 'Poems with Friends.'In 'Poems with Friends', our Producer John Prebble catches up with some of the great friends he's made through working on The Poetry Exchange over the last 12 years. He invites each of his friends to speak with him 1:2:1 about a poem that's keeping them company at this time...a poem that's resonating for them and speaking to them now in some way. Together, they read the poem and have a conversation about it, as well as catching up and enjoying some quality time together!In this first episode of 'Poems with Friends', John speaks with the brilliant Alison McManus. Alison has been a massive friend to and champion of The Poetry Exchange for many years, since she first walked into a chapel in Durham to talk about the poem that's been a friend to her with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer. Alison went on to become Chair of The Poetry Exchange as a small charity, and has been a vital part of our work and a great friend to so many of us over the years.In this conversation, Alison catches up with John and talks with him about a poem that's keeping her company at this time: 'The Tyger' by William Blake.We are looking forward to sharing more conversations in this 'mini-series' of Poems with Friends with you soon.Thank you for listening,John and The Poetry Exchange x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Friends - it is our 100th episode!We are so pleased to be here with you, sharing, listening, celebrating.We have a very special conversation to mark the occasion: our very own Michael Shaeffer, host of The Poetry Exchange, talks about the poem that has been a friend to him - 'Having a Coke with You' by Frank O'Hara.10 years...100 episodes...countless more poems, stories, converastions...and now Michael shares his story of connection with O'Hara's gorgeous poem.We're thrilled and immensely grateful to Michael for sitting 'in the other chair' for this one, and sharing the story of his friendship so openly. You'll hear Michael in conversation with Roy McFarlane and Andrea Witzke Slot. Our thanks to the Alfred A. Knopf and the Frank O'Hara estate for allowing us to share the poem with you, and to the South London Gallery for hosting the conversation.Michael talks about his appearance in the re-staging of London Road at the National Theatre, which runs 7th - 21st June. Get your tickets while you can if you're in or around London during this time!As Michael says in this episode, we will be taking a pause from the podcast for a while after this episode, having reached this extraordinary milestone. Michael will also be stepping back from hosting at this point, having co-hosted The Poetry Exchange with Fiona since the very beginning.What an enormous journey it has been for Michael, for us all, and we are so grateful for all your friendship and support along the way.The Poetry Exchange is continuing, and for now we will be focussing on some new collaborations that create live, intimate encounters between people and poems....something that has always been at the heart of The Poetry Exchange.Keep in touch with us to find out more about as these new adventures as they unfold, including ways of being involved. You can sign up to our mailing list at www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk, follow us on Instagram @PoetryExch, or drop us a line any time on [email protected] now, thank you so much for being with us over the years...for all your love, support and companionship. Here's to living life filled with poems as friends.Thank you for listening,Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange Xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we talk with writer and academic Serena Trowbridge about the poem that's been a friend to her: 'A Shropshire Lad 31: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble' by A.E. Housman.This conversation was recorded in April 2022 at the Birmingham & Midland Institute. It is very special to listen back to this converation now, particularly to hear Fiona with all her usual passion and insights in conversation with Serena.Dr Serena Trowbridge is a writer and academic specialising in Pre-Raphaelitism in art and literature. She is Reader in Victorian Literature at Birmingham City University.Serena is Vice-President and Chair of the Pre-Raphaelite Society, and Senior Vice-President at the Birmingham & Midland Institute. You can find her thoughts on art and literature on Substack.Huge thanks to Serena for joining us for this conversation and allowing us to share it with you.We are so grateful to you all for listening and for all your continuous support of The Poetry Exchange. This is episode 99 and we are looking forward to sharing our special 100th episode with you soon.With love,Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, poet Nick Makoha talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'White Egrets (I)' by Derek Walcott.Nick actually joined us back in 2017 at Pushkin House, London, and we are delighted to be sharing this conversation with you now. It is very special to hear Fiona in this conversation, with all her usual warmth and brilliance.Nick Makoha's latest collection 'The New Carthaginians' is published this month from Allen Lane - you can order/buy your copy here.The event for 'On the Brink of Touch' by Fiona Bennett is on 26th February at The Bedford in Balham, London, and live streamed. We'd love for you to join us, and you can book your places here!Dr Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet. His new collection is The New Carthaginians published by Penguin UK. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. He was the ICA 2023 Writer-in-Residence. He was the 2019 Writer-in-Residence for The Wordsworth Trust and Wasafiri. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and Complete Works alumnus. He won the 2015 Brunel African Poetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte no echo in that astonishing excavation.Each soldier gave an oath, each gave his wordto die for his emperor, his clan, his nation,to become a chess soldier, breathlessly erectin shade or crossing sunlight, without hours – from clay to clay and odourlessly strict.If vows were visibl

In this episode, we are joined by acclaimed poet Tamar Yoseloff, who shares with us the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Morning' by Frank O'Hara.The conversation, like the poem, is full of joy and delight, as well as sadness and loss. Tamar spoke with Michael and Andrea in early May 2024, and the conversation takes on a new light now, as we continue to hold Fiona so closely in our hearts.Tamar Yoseloff has published seven collections, including The Formula for Night: New and Selected Poems (2015) and most recently, Belief Systems, which was a PBS Summer Recommendation in 2024. She’s also the author of Formerly, a chapbook incorporating photographs by Vici MacDonald (Hercules Editions, 2012) shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. She was a lecturer on the Poetry School / Newcastle University MA in Writing Poetry and continues to teach independently. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2023.Tamar Yoseloff was one of Fiona's outstanding poetry mentors, having taught her on the MA in 2022, along with Glyn Maxwell. It is very fitting that Tammy is our guest this month, as we celebrate the arrival of Fiona's own collection of poetry: 'On the Brink of Touch', now available from Live Canon. Tamar Yoseloff and Glyn Maxwell, along with Helen Eastman of Live Canon, were all instrumental in ensuring Fiona's collection was published - something Fiona knew was going to happen, even if she didn't get to see her book its final form. 'On the Brink of Touch' is a work of great beauty and immense humanity, and it is extraordinary that we are all now able to hold it in our hands.Michael also mentions the memorial we held recently to remember and celebrate Fiona, which you can view anytime here.•••••••••Morningby Frank O'HaraI’ve got to tell youhow I love you alwaysI think of it on greymornings with deathin my mouth the teais never hot enoughthen and the cigarettedry the maroon robechills me I need youand look out the windowat the noiseless snowAt night on the dockthe buses glow likeclouds and I am lonelythinking of flutesI miss you alwayswhen I go to the beachthe sand is wet withtears that seem minealthough I never weepand hold you in myheart with a very realhumor you’d be proud ofthe parking lot iscrowded and I standrattling my keys the caris empty as a bicyclewhat are you doing nowwhere did

Dear friendsWe are mourning and missing our beloved Fiona, whilst also celebrating her extraordinary life and work, and everything she brought to all our lives. We continue to feel her with us in everything we do. This month, we pay tribute to Fiona by re-relasing the conversation in which Fiona visits The Poetry Exchange for herself, talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'A Kite for Aibhín' by Seamus Heaney. The conversation was originally recorded in France in 2017, and you can also find it as episode 23 of the podcast. We are incredibly grateful for all the amazing messages of support, gratitude, loss and condolence we have received from so many of you around the world. Your words speak volumes about Fiona and the way she touched and changed your lives, whether you knew her in person or simply through listening to her voice each month. Michael reads a small selection of some of these messages at the beginning of the episode.Please do continue to write to us with thoughts, feelings and memories of Fiona at [email protected]'s own collection of poetry - On the Brink of Touch - will be published later this month by Live Canon, and we will let you know more about that very soon. You will hear Fiona's reading of her poem 'Imprint' at the end of this episode. Thank you so much for all your support, love and friendship,Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange xx*********A Kite for Aibhínby Seamus HeaneyAfter "L'Aquilone" by Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912)Air from another life and time and place,Pale blue heavenly air is supportingA white wing beating high against the breeze,And yes, it is a kite! As when one afternoonAll of us there trooped outAmong the briar hedges and stripped thorn,I take my stand again, halt oppositeAnahorish Hill to scan the blue,Back in that field to launch our long-tailed comet.And now it hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew,Lifts itself, goes with the wind untilIt rises to loud cheers from us below.Rises, and my hand is like a spindleUnspooling, the kite a thin-stemmed flowerClimbing and carrying, carrying farther, higherThe longing in the breast and planted feetAnd gazing face and heart of the kite flierUntil string breaks and—separate, elate—The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.Excerpted from Human Chain by Seamus Heaney. Published in September 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright © 2010 by Seamus Heaney. All rights reserved. Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;

READ TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE -Dearest friends,We are so sorry to have to share the hardest news with you - something we could never imagine having to say...Our beautiful friend and the founder, co-host and guiding light of The Poetry Exchange, Fiona Bennett, has died after a short illness.We are so sorry this will come as a huge shock to you all.It is hard to begin to express the enormous sense of loss, grief and endless love we are feeling for our most beloved Fiona. We know so many of you will be feeling this with us. FIona touched so many people's lives in such a profound way....whether through you listening in to her voice every month on the podcast, or through meeting and knowing Fiona in person.As Michael puts it in the introduction to this episode: "Fiona was a real one off. She really was one of the very best."This episode is a converastion Fiona really wanted us to share. It is an exchange with the wondrous David Lewsey about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'The World as Meditation' by Wallace Stevens. We recorded the conversation just a few months ago, and it is wonderful to hear David share all his passion for this poem and for poetry with Fiona and Michael.We would love to hear from you with any messages, feelings and reflections about Fiona, and you can get in touch with us on [email protected]. We are going to be taking some time to process and face the loss of our beautiful friend, and to think about ways of lifting up and honouring her extraordinary life and legacy.For now, we are incredibly grateful for all your friendship, and we are sending so much love to you all.Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special episode, we share a recording of our live event at Norfolk and Norwich Festival in June 2024, celebrating our new anthology: Poems as Friends.Michael Shaeffer is joined by contributors to the anthology Roy McFarlane and Hannah Jane Walker, to read a selection of the poems found within its pages, alongside the stories of the readers who have known them as friends.We are incredibly grateful to the Norfolk The Healing Next Time (2018), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and Living By Troubled Waters (2022). In 2023, Roy McFarlane was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our podcast, acclaimed writer Nick Laird talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'The Envoy of Mr. Cogito' by Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Bogdana Carpenter.Nick Laird was born in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He writes poetry, fiction, screenplays, and criticism, and lives in London and New York. His poetry collections (from Faber and Faber) are: To a Fault (2005); On Purpose (2007); Go Giants (2015); Feel Free (2018).We are so grateful to Nick for joining us for this utterly extrarordinary converastion, and to Oxford University Press Ltd for their permission to share Zbigniew Herbert's poem with you in this way.You can find out more about our upcoming events with our anthology, Poems as Friends, on our website.'The Envoy of Mr. Cogito' by Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Bogdana Carpenter, is read by Fiona Bennett.*********The Envoy of Mr. Cogitoby Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Bogdana CarpenterGo where those others went to the dark boundaryfor the golden fleece of nothingness your last prizego upright among those who are on their kneesamong those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dustyou were saved not in order to liveyou have little time you must give testimonybe courageous when the mind deceives you be courageousin the final account only this is importantand let your helpless Anger be like the seawhenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beatenlet your sister Scorn not leave youfor the informers executioners cowards—they will winthey will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earththe woodborer will write your smoothed-over biographyand do not forgive truly it is not in your powerto forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawnbeware however of unnecessary pridekeep looking at your clown’s face in the mirrorrepeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than Ibeware of dryness of heart love the morning springthe bird with an unknown name the winter oaklight on a wall the splendour of the skythey don’t need your warm breaththey are there to say: no one will console yoube vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and goas long as blood turns in the breast your dark starrepeat old incantations of humanity fables and legendsbecause this is how you will attain the good you will not attainrepeat great words repeat them stubbornlylike those crossing the desert who perish

READ TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.In this episode, our hearts are full as we are joined by the glorious poet Imtiaz Dharker, talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Meeting Point' by Louis MacNeice.We are also thrilled to say that this episode will be with you in the month that Poems as Friends - The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology is published - on 9th May 2024. We are hugely grateful to everyone who has contributed poems and stories to its pages, and to all of you for your support and love for The Poetry Exchange over the last 10 years.Imtiaz Dharker is one of the leading and most widely respected poets of our age. "Reading her, one feels that were there to be a World Laureate, Imtiaz Dharker would be the only candidate." - Carol Ann Duffy. Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief.On 23rd May 2024, Imtiaz's latest collection Shadow Reader is published by Bloodaxe Books. Shadow Reader is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. We are so delighted to share this conversation with you in the month that Shadow Reader - and our anthology of Poems as Friends - join us in the world.Imtiaz Dharker is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.*********Meeting Pointby Louis MacNeiceTime was away and somewhere else,There were two glasses and two chairsAnd two people with the one pulse(Somebody stopped the moving stairs):Time was away and somewhere else.And they were neither up nor down;The stream’s music did not stopFlowing through heather, limpid brown,Although they sat in a coffee shopAnd they were neither up nor down.The bell was silent in the airHolding its inverted poise—Between the clang and clang a flower,A brazen calyx of no noise:The bell was silent in the air.The camels crossed the miles of sandThat stretched around the cups and plates;The desert was their own, they plannedTo portion out the stars and dates:The camels crossed the miles of sand.Time was away and somewhere else.The w

In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we talk with one of poetry's greatest leading lights, Malika Booker, about the poem that has been a friend to her: ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ by Lorna Goodison.Malika Booker, currently based in Leeds, is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). A Cave Canem Fellow, and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022).Malika has won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem TWICE: in 2020 for 'The Little Miracles' (Magma, 2019), and most recently in 2023 for 'Libation', which you can hear her read in this episode.'Libation' was first published in The Poetry Review (112:4). ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ by Lorna Goodison is published in Turn Thanks by Lorna Goodison, University of Illinois Press, 1999.You can read the full text of ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ on our website.This episode closes with a reading of the poem 'Su Casa' by Andrea Witzke Slot, published in her collection 'The Ministry of Flowers' (Valley Press, 2020).P.S. don’t forget you can pre-order your copy of Poems as Friends – The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology – which is published by Quercus Editions on 9th May 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.In this special episode, we honour the poetry legend that is Benjamin Zephaniah by sharing this conversation with poet Roy McFarlane, talking about 'Dis Poetry' and the hugely influential part Benjamin Zephaniah has played in Roy's life.Roy McFarlane is a poet born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage. He has held the roles of Birmingham’s Poet Laureate, Starbucks’ Poet in Residence and Birmingham The Healing Next Time (2018), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and Living By Troubled Waters (2022). In 2023, Roy McFarlane was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. He was included in The Times’ list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008 and was probably the most televised poet of his generation in the UK. His down-to-earth mission to take poetry wherever he could – and especially to those who would not normally read it – led him to being known to millions as ‘The People’s Poet. Zephaniah was revolutionary in bringing his Jamaican voice, speech and heritage into poetry – both on the page and in performance – opening up doors for many poets to come. A lifelong activist, Zephaniah’s wrote about his lived experiences of incarceration and racism, and was a radical voice for freedom, equality and humanity around the world.  The recording of 'Dis Poetry', performed by Benjamin Zephaniah, is taken from To Do Wid Me - a 2013 film portrait of Benjamin Zephaniah by Pamela Robertson-Pearce drawing on both live performances and informal interviews. The film and accompanying Selected Poems are available from Bloodaxe Books: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/to-do-wid-me-dvd-book--1038.Roy McFarlane's extraordinary poem 'In the city of a hundred tongues' is taken from his collection The Healing Next Time, published by Nine Arches Press in 2018.Roy McFarlane is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.*********Dis Poetryby Benjamin ZephaniahDis poetry is like a riddim dat dropsDe tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shotsDis poetry is designed fe rantinDance hall styl

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.In this very special episode of The Poetry Exchange podcast, journalist, writer and editor Simon Crompton talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'The Thrush' by Edward Thomas.This episode is dedicated to a dear friend of Simon and of The Poetry Exchange - the extraordinary Martin Heaney - who sadly died at the end of 2023. Martin has been a touchstone of The Poetry Exchange from the outset, bringing his deep passion for poetry and his belief in the central importance of friendship to our lives to our work over the years. We are eternally grateful to Martin for being such a beautiful, inspirational and joyful friend.Simon Crompton is a journalist, writer, editor and communications consultant specialising in health and social affairs. He wrote for The Times for over 20 years, also working as the health editor of the newspaper’s Body&Soul section. He has edited many publications in the fields of health and social work and contributes regularly to the international Cancer World magazine. Throughout his career he has provided consultancy to a wide range of voluntary and statutory organisations working for patient and public welfare. Having written three non-fiction books, he is now focusing on writing fiction.Martin Heaney's podcast is Chatty Guy Talks Cancer Care and Hope (you can hear Martin in conversation with Simon Crompton on one of the early episodes).You can listen to Martin talk about the poem that's been a friend to him - The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats - in this episode of The Poetry Exchange.At the end of the episode, we share a recording of Martin reading 'Sometimes all it takes' by Gill McEvoy. We are very grateful to Gill for allowing us to share this beautiful poem. Gill McEvoy's Selected Poems is published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in February 2024.Thank you to Simon for such a beautiful converastion, to Martin for all the inspiration, and to all of you for listening.*********The Thrushby Edward ThomasWhen Winter's ahead,What can you read in NovemberThat you read in AprilWhen Winter's dead? I hear the thrush, and I seeHim alone at the end of the

In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we listen back to one of our previous conversations - with the extraordinary actor Andrew Scott, talking about the poem that's been a friend to him: 'Love (III)' by George Herbert.As 2023 draws to a close, this is the poem and conversation we want to lift up for you all...We are incredibly grateful to Andrew Scott for joining us back in 2018 to talk so openly and eloquently about this poem and the part it has played in his life.Thank you for all your support and for sharing a love of poetry with us during 2023.With love from Fiona, Michael and all of us at The Poetry Exchange*********Love (III)by George HerbertLove bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back,Guilty of dust and sin.But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slackFrom my first entrance in,Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioningIf I lacked anything.‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’Love said, ‘You shall be he.’‘I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,I cannot look on thee.’Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,‘Who made the eyes but I?’‘Truth Lord; but I have marred them; let my shameGo where it doth deserve.’‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’‘My dear, then I will serve.’‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat:’So I did sit and eat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ TRANSCRIPTIn this episode, poet, playwright, teacher and activist Jacqueline Saphra talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Ceasefire' by Michael Longley.We are so grateful to Jacqueline for joining us at this time, to talk about this beautiful poem and the part it has played in her life.Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright, teacher and activist. She is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye) was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing But Naked Women (The Emma Press) won Best Collaborative Work at The Sabotage Awards. Recent collections from Nine Arches Press are All My Mad Mothers (shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize), Dad, Remember You are Dead and One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and teaches at The Poetry School. Her latest collection, Velvel's Violin (Nine Arches Press, 2023) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.Jacqueline is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.*********Ceasefireby Michael LongleyIPut in mind of his own father and moved to tearsAchilles took him by the hand and pushed the old kingGently away, but Priam curled up at his feet andWept with him until their sadness filled the building.IITaking Hector’s corpse into his own hands AchillesMade sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carryWrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.IIIWhen they had eaten together, it pleased them bothTo stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking stillAnd full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:IV‘I get down on my knees and do what must be doneAnd kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’From 'Ghost Orchid' (Jonathan Cape, 1995), copyright © Michael Longley<p style='color:grey

READ TRANSCRIPTIn this episode, poet, writer and doctor Gita Ralleigh talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'The Daughter' by Carmen Giménez.We're so grateful to Gita for sharing such an intimate, beautiful conversation with us, and to Carmen Giménez and The University of Arizona Press for allowing us to bring the poem to you in this way.Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She teaches creative writing to science undergraduates at Imperial College and has an MA in Creative Writing and an MSc in Medical Humanities. Her poetry books are A Terrible Thing (Bad Betty Press, 2020) and Siren (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). Her debut children’s novel The Destiny Of Minou Moonshine was published by Zephyr/Head of Zeus in July 2023. You can find her on Twitter as @storyvilled and on Instagram as @gita_ralleigh'The Daughter' can be found in Carmen Giménez' collection Milk and Filth, published by University of Arizona Press, 2013. You can find out more about Carmen Giménez and her work at www.carmengimenez.net.We are thrilled to announce our first anthology will be pubished by Quercus Editions on 9th May 2024! Poems as Friends: The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology will bring together a beautiful selection of poems that readers have shared with us at The Poetry Exchange over the last 10 years. The poems will be presented alongside readers' stories of connection, revealing how the poems have acted as friends to them and have played a part in their lives. You can find out more about our our anthology and pre-order your copy here.We are so grateful to all our listeners, followers and contributors for being part of The Poetry Exchange so far, and for celebrating and sharing poems as friends with us in so many beautiful ways.*

In this episode, poet and criminal barrister Tim Kiely talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Timothy Winters' by Charles Causley.READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.We are so grateful to Tim for joining us and sharing his story of connection with Causely's powerful poem.Tim Kiely is a criminal barrister and poet based in London. His work has appeared in 'South Bank Poetry', 'Under the Radar', 'Atrium', 'Ink, Sweat & Tears' and 'Magma'. He is the author of three poetry pamphlets, 'Hymn to the Smoke' (from Indigo Dreams), 'Plaque for the Unknown Socialist' (from Back Room Poetry) and 'No Other Life' (from Vole Books), all of which are available from timkielybooks.bigcartel.com. He can be followed @timkiely1 on Instagram and Twitter.You can find 'Timothy Winters' in Charles Causley's 'Collected Poems' 1951-2000 (Picador, 2000).Fiona and Michael mention this year's Forward Prizes for Poetry - find out more about all the shortlisted poets and the prize ceremony, taking place at Leeds Playhouse on 16th October 2023.Is there a poem that has been a friend to YOU? Tell us about it and read some of the extraordinary nominations of poems as friends we have received so far... www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/nominate.Tim Kiely is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Al Snell and Andrea Witzke Slot.*********Timothy Wintersby Charles CausleyTimothy Winters comes to schoolWith eyes as wide as a football-pool,Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.His belly is white, his neck is dark,And his hair is an exclamation-mark.His clothes are enough to scare a crowAnd through his britches the blue winds blow.When teacher talks he won't hear a wordAnd he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,He licks the pattern off his plateAnd he's not even heard of the Welfare State.Timothy Winters has bloody feetAnd he lives in a house on Suez Street,He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floorAnd they say there aren't boys like him anymore.Old Man Winters likes his beerAnd his missus ran off with a bombardier,Grandma sits in the

FOR TRANSCRIPT CLICK HERE. In this episode, poet Michael Mark joins us to talk about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Little Champion' by Tony Hoagland.Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, which won the 2022 Rattle Chapbook prize. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Copper Nickel, The New York Times, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Southern Review, The Sun, 32 Poems, and The Poetry Foundation's American Life in Poetry. His two books of stories are Toba and At the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum). michaeljmark.com We are hugely grateful to Michael for visiting The Poetry Exchange and talking so openly and eloquently about his connection with 'Little Champion.'You can find 'Little Champion' in Tony Hogland's collection 'Application for Release from the Dream', published by Graywolf Press (2015). Many thanks to Grawywolf Press for their support.Michael Mark is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Andrea Witzke Slot and John Prebble.The 'gift' reading of 'Little Champion' is by John Prebble.*********Little Championby Tony HoaglandWhen I get hopeless about human life,which quite frankly is far too difficult for me,I like to remember that in the desert there isa little butterfly that lives by drinking urine. And when I have to take the bus to work on Saturday,or spend an hour opening the mail,deciding what to keep and what to throw away,one piece at a time, I think of the butterfly following its animal aroundthrough the morning and the night,fluttering, weaving sideways throughthe cactus and the rocks. And when I have to meet all Tuesday afternoonwith the committee to discuss new bylaws,or listen to the dinner guest explain his recipe for German beer, or hear the scholar tell, again,about her campaign to destroy, once and for all,the cult of heteronormativity, I think of that tough little championwith orange and black markings on its wings,resting in the shade beneath a ledge of rockwhile its animal sleeps nearby; and I see how the droplets hang and gleam amongthe thorns and drab green leaves of desert plantsand how the butterfly alights and drinks from themdeeply, with a stillness of utter

FOR TRANSCRIPT CLICK HERE.In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we are thrilled to be joined by the poetry tour-de-force that is Salena Godden, to hear about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'You Don't Know What Love' Is by Kim Addonizio.Salena spoke with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer about this elusive, gorgeous poem and the part it has played in her life.Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights for Mrs Death Misses Death have been optioned by Idris Elba’s production company Green Door Pictures.A hardback edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in February 2023. She is currently working on a memoir and a poetry collection which are both due for publication in May 2024, plus an eagerly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death Misses Death universe due for publication in spring 2025.Salena's essay Shade was published in groundbreaking anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound 2016). Godden has had several volumes of poetry published including Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press 2011) Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye Books 2014), plus also a childhood memoir, Springfield Road (Unbound 2014).After hearing this episode, you will also want to seek out and read as much as you can of Kim Addonizio's work.*********You Don't Know What Love Isby Kim AddonizioYou don't know what love isbut you know how to raise it in melike a dead girl winched up from a river. How towash off the sludge, the stench of our past.How to start clean. This love even sits upand blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll wantto g

In this episode, poet, radio host and editor Lois P. Jones talks about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'What Survives' by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin Jr.Lois P. Jones is a luminous poet, radio host and editor, living in California. She won the 2023 Alpine Fellowship which this year takes place in Fjällnäs, Sweden. She was a finalist in the annual Mslexia Poetry Competition judged by Helen Mort and will be published in Spring 2023. In 2022 her work was a finalist for both the Best Spiritual Literature Award in Poetry from Orison Books and the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Lois' first collection, 'Night Ladder' was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2017 and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award and the Lascaux Poetry Prize for a poetry collection. Since 2007, has hosted KPFK’s Poets Café, co-produced the Moonday Poetry Series and acted as poetry editor for Pushcart and Utne prize-winning Kyoto Journal.'What Survives' was published in The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr, by Graywolf Press in 2002.Lois P. Jones is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'What Survives' is by Fiona and Michael.*********What Survivesby Rainer Maria Rilketranslated by A. Poulin, Jr.Who says that all must vanish?Who knows, perhaps the flightof the bird you wound remains,and perhaps flowers surviveour caresses, in their ground. It isn't the gesture that lasts,but it dresses you again in goldarmor--from breast to knees—and the battle was so puremay an Angel wear it after you.From The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. (Graywolf Press, 2002). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode, writer Rosie Garland talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'My Dark Horses' by Jodie Hollander.Writer and singer with post-punk band The March Violets, Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries. Her poetry collection ‘What Girls do the Dark’ (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021, I’d spend some time with all those that I’d loved,then disappear into a gathering of trees.If only I were more like my dark horses,I wouldn’t be so frightened of the storms;instead, when the clouds began to gather and fillI’d make my way

In this latest episode of The Poetry Exchange, we revisit our conversation with the extraordinary poet & artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Remember' by Joy Harjo.This beautiful and transformative conversation was originally released in 2020 and has been a friend to many of our listeners so far. We felt it was one to bring into the light all over again!We are hugely grateful to Rachel Eliza Griffiths for sharing her profound story of connection with Joy Harjo's life-filled poem, and to Joy Harjo and her publisher W.W. Norton & Co. for giving us their blessing to share it with you in this way.Rachel Eliza Griffiths is an American poet, novelist, photographer and visual artist, who is the author of five published collections of poems. In her recent book, Seeing the Body (2020), she "pairs poetry with photography, exploring memory, Black womanhood, the American landscape, and rebirth." (Sarah Herrington, Los Angeles Review of Books). Seeing the Body was the winner of the 2021 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award in Poetry, the winner of the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and nominated for a 2020 NAACP Image award. Rachel Eliza's debut novel, Promise, was published by Penguin Random House in July 2023. Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and is the author of ten books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years. Her many honors include the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. You can find out more about Joy Harjo's work at: www.joyharjo.com.Two poems by John Clare also feature in this episode: 'All Nature has a Feeling' and 'A Spring Morning'.*********Rememberby Joy HarjoRemember the sky that you were born under,know each of the star's stories.Remember the moon, know who she is.Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is thestrongest point of time. Remember sundownand the giving away to night.Remember your birth, how your mother struggledto give you form and breath. You are evidence ofher life, and her mother's, and hers.Remember your father. He is your life, also.Remember the earth

In this latest episode of The Poetry Exchange, we revisit our conversation about 'Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)' by Frank O'Hara - A Friend to Harry Jelly.This gorgeous conversation was originally released in 2016 and has been a friend to many of our listeners so far. We felt it was one to lift up and enjoy all over again!We are hugely grateful to Harry for sharing his story of connection with Frank O'Hara's wonderful poem, and to the John Rylands Library for hosting this conversation back in 2016.This is the second of a trio of episodes revisiting previously released conversations - specially chosen and introduced by Fiona and Michael.*********Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)by Frank O'HaraLana Turner has collapsed!I was trotting along and suddenlyit started raining and snowingand you said it was hailingbut hailing hits you on the headhard so it was really snowing andraining and I was in such a hurryto meet you but the trafficwas acting exactly like the skyand suddenly I see a headlineLANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!there is no snow in Hollywoodthere is no rain in CaliforniaI have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up’Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)' by Frank O'Hara from 'Lunch Poems: Pocket Poets Number 19'. (City Lights Publishers 2014). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this latest episode of The Poetry Exchange, we revisit our conversation about 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower' by Dylan Thomas - A Friend to Angela.This extraordinary and beautiful conversation was originally released in 2019 and has been a friend to many of our listeners so far. We felt it was one to lift up and revisit again in this moment.We are hugely grateful to Angela for sharing her story of connection with Dylan Thomas's poem, and to Manchester Central Library for hosting this conversation.This is the first of a trio of episodes revisiting previously released conversations - specially chosen and introduced by Fiona and Michael.You will also hear Fiona and Michael read from and discuss Kae Tempest's soul-reaching and truth-speaking book On Connection, as well as the poem 'Tall Nettles' by Edward Thomas.*********The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerby Dylan ThomasThe force that through the green fuse drives the flowerDrives my green age; that blasts the roots of treesIs my destroyer.And I am dumb to tell the crooked roseMy youth is bent by the same wintry fever.The force that drives the water through the rocksDrives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streamsTurns mine to wax.And I am dumb to mouth unto my veinsHow at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.The hand that whirls the water in the poolStirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing windHauls my shroud sail.And I am dumb to tell the hanging manHow of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.The lips of time leech to the fountain head;Love drips and gathers, but the fallen bloodShall calm her sores.And I am dumb to tell a weather’s windHow time has ticked a heaven round the stars.And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tombHow at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.Poem © Dylan Thomas. Used by permission of David Higham Associates. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, poet Rowena Knight talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Grief' by Matthew Dickman.Rowena visited us in Durham and is in conversation with Andrea Witzke Slot and Michael Shaeffer. We are hugely grateful to her for sharing her story of connection with Matthew Dickman's poem.Rowena Knight’s poetry is influenced by her identity as a queer feminist and her childhood in New Zealand. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including Butcher’s Dog, Magma, The Rialto, and The Emma Press Anthology of Love. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Prize and commended in the 2019 Winchester Poetry Prize. Her first pamphlet, All the Footprints I Left Were Red, was published with Valley Press in 2016. You can find Rowena on Twitter @purple_feminist and Instagram @purple_feminist_You can discover more of Matthew Dickman's stunning, reverberating poetry at www.matthewdickmanpoetry.com. 'Grief' can be found in the collection 'Mayakovsky's Revolver' from W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.The reading of 'Grief' is by Andrea Witzke Slot.*********Griefby Matthew DickmanWhen grief comes to you as a purple gorillayou must count yourself lucky.You must offer her what’s leftof your dinner, the book you were trying to finishyou must put asideand make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,her eyes moving from the clockto the television and back again.I am not afraid. She has been here beforeand now I can recognize her gaitas she approaches the house.Some nights, when I know she’s coming,I unlock the door, lie down on my back,and count her stepsfrom the street to the porch.Tonight she brings a pencil and a ream of paper,tells me to write downeveryone I have ever known,and we separate them between the living and the deadso she can pick each name at random.I play her favorite Willie Nelson albumbecause she misses Texasbut I don’t ask why.She hums a little,the way my brother does when he gardens.We sit for an hourwhile she tells me how unreasonable I’ve been,crying in the check-out line,refusing to eat, refusing to shower,all the smoking and all the drinking.Eventually she puts one of her heavypurple arm

In this episode, poet Ella Frears talks about the poem that has been a friend to her: The The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Ella Frears is a poet and artist based in London. Her debut collection, Shine, Darling, (Offord Road Books, 2020) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her latest pamphlet I AM THE MOTHER CAT written as part of her residency at John Hansard Gallery is out with Rough Trade Books (2021). Ella was recently named Poet in Residence for the Dartington Trust’s grade II listed Gardens, selected by Alice Oswald. She is a trustee and editor for Magma Poetry and has been Poet in Residence for the National Trust, Tate Britain, The John Hansard Gallery, K6 Gallery, SPUD (the Observatory), conservation organisation Back from the Brink, and was poet in residence at Royal Holloway University physics department, writing about the Cassini Space Mission. https://ellafrears.com Ella is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is read by Michael Shaeffer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In our latest episode, acclaimed poet, playwright and librettist Glyn Maxwell talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Acquainted with the Night' by Robert Frost.Glyn is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.Glyn Maxwell's volumes of poetry include The Breakage, Hide Now, Pluto, and How The Hell Are You, all of which were shortlisted for either the Forward or T. S. Eliot Prizes, and The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His latest collection is The Big Calls, published in 2023 by Live Canon.On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, was published by Oberon in 2012. The Spectator called it ‘a modern classic’ and The Guardian’s Adam Newey described it as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.’ Drinks With Dead Poets, which is both an expansion of On Poetry and a novel in itself, was published by Oberon in September 2016.Many of Maxwell’s plays have been staged in London and New York, including Liberty at Shakespeare’s Globe, and at the Almeida, Arcola, RADA and Southwark Playhouse.*********Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost  I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.  I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky  Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.I have been one acquainted with the night.Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1964, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine. Copyright 1936, 1942 © 1956 by Robert Frost. Copyright 1923, 1928, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our podcast, Alex Pritchard-Jones talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: Poem in October by Dylan Thomas.Alex spoke with us online during a day of Exchanges at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. He is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.Poem in October is read by Roy McFarlane.*********Poem In Octoberby Dylan ThomasIt was my thirtieth year to heavenWoke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckonWith water praying and call of seagull and rookAnd the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That secondIn the still sleeping town and set forth.My birthday began with the water-Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumnAnd walked abroad in a shower of all my days.High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gatesOf the town closed as the town awoke.A springful of larks in a rollingCloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hill's shoulder,Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenlyCome in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow coldIn the wood faraway under me.Pale rain over the dwindling harbourAnd over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardensOf spring and summer were blooming in the tall talesBeyond the border and under the lark full cloud. There could I marvel My birthdayAway but the weather turned around.It turned away from the blithe countryAnd down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currantsAnd I saw in the turning so clearly a child'sForgotten mornings when he walked with his mother Through the parables Of sun lightAnd the legends of the green chapelsAnd the twice told fields of infancyThat his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listeningSummertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joyTo the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang aliveStill in the water and singingbirds.And there could I marvel my birthdayAway but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of th

In this special, feature-length episode, we bring you our live event at SkyLines Festival of Poetry Rishi talks about 'Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream' by Amy Key.We are hugely greatful to Roz and Rishi for joining us for this event and for sharing the poems that have been friends to them so openly and beautifully. Our thanks also to the Belgrade Theatre and SkyLines Festival team, especially Jane Commane for inviting us to be part of the programme and Jason Sylvester and Debbie Harlow for their support on the day. Thank you to Amy Key for allowing us to share her brilliant poem - you can find it in Amy's collection 'Isn't Forever' from Bloodaxe Books. Roy also reads 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald. Many thanks to Alice Oswald and United Agents for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. 'A Short Story of Falling' can be found in the collection 'Falling Awake' (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016.*********Pulmonary Tuberculosisby Katherine MansfieldThe man in the room next to mine has the same complaint as I. When Iwake in the night I hear him turning. And then he coughs. And I cough. And after a silence I cough. And he coughs again. This goes on for a long time. Until I feel we are like two roosters calling to each other at false dawn. From far-away hidden farms.Lousy with unfuckedness, I dreamby Amy Keyeach night I count ghostlets of how my body waswanted / behind with deadheading / rose hips havecome / behind with actions that count only / whenthe timing is right / I took out a contract / it wasimprudent in value / behind with asepsis / hellomicrobes of my body / we sleep together / hellocats / I make my bed daily / of the three types ofhair on the sheets / only one is human / I count thebedrooms / I never had sex in / but there were cars/ wild woods / blackfly has got to all thenasturtiums / you cannot dig up a grapevine / andexpect shelter to come / I am touched by your letter/ writes a friend / you prevaricate desire / saysmessage / all this fucking / with no hands on meCopyright Amy Key. From 'Isn't Forever' by Amy K

In this episode, poet Sue Brown talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her - 'Truth' by Jean 'Binta' Breeze.​Sue joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute and is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.Sue Brown writes from the heart and the soul. Her words pull from the dialect of her local community, from the long toned melodic speech of preachers and Maya Angelou, from mantras and incantations, from jazz. In her poetry, a lifetime in the making, she is a fighter and a lover, by turns rising up against the oppression that has dominated her peoples’ history, and rising skywards on the warm air of her compassion and her capacity for love. These poems move with a beat that speaks to hearts everywhere. They pulse with life, feeling like they could either be spoken or sung. Feel their rhythm. Feel their profound sensibility. And as Roy McFarlane says in his exuberant introduction to this book – ‘Let Rhythm Chant take a hold of you.’'Truth' is taken from Jean Binta Breeze's 'Third World Girl - Selected Poems', published by Bloodaxe Books.*********Truthby Jean 'Binta' Breezesome years afterwhen the laughter came againshe grew her hair in locks around her headand livedsimply without even a bed but sheshe had stories that womanshe had stories to telland children who listened welland sheshe hid nothingmade no excuses for selfjust lettruth give her voice to the windand she would sing sometimes sing and ask a little more timefor memory to swell their headsthe children gathered around herthe more they askedthe more words she was sentwords that crossed all agesserved no lawswords that questioned all they had been taughtso they put her awayone dayshe must be madthe adults saycorrupting young mindsit's obvious depravedshe grew silent thenher laughter grew thinthen left with the windbut the children grew up and rememberedone woman who didn't lieone woman who didn't hidenow they count the hypocrites among themFrom 'Third World Girl, Selected Poems', 2011, Bloodaxe Books. Reproduced with kind permission of the publisher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Maryam talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Love Song for Words' by Nazik al-Mala'ika, translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson.Nazik al-Mala'ika was born in Baghdad, before moving to Kuwait in 1970. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, they moved to Cairo, where she would live for the rest of her life. She was the author of several books of poetry, including The Nights Lover (1945), The Cholera (1947), Bottom of the Wave (1957) and The sea changes its color (1977). Al-Mala'ika is known as the first Arabic poet to use free verse. She died in 2007 at the age of 83.Rebecca C. Johnson is a scholar of comparative literature with a specialization in modern Arabic literature and literary culture. Her research focuses on literary exchanges between Arabic and European languages in the 19th & 20th centuries, the history and theory of the novel, and studies of transnational literary circulation and translation. Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation, 1835-1913 was published by Cornell University Press in 2021.Many thanks to Words Without Borders, who originally published this translation of the Love Song For Words.Maryam is in conversation with Al Snell & Andrea Witzke-Slot.*********Love Song for WordsWhy do we fear wordswhen they have been rose-palmed hands,fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,and glasses of heartening winesipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?Why do we fear wordswhen among them are words like unseen bells,whose echo announces in our troubled livesthe coming of a period of enchanted dawn,drenched in love, and life?So why do we fear words?We took pleasure in silence.We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.We shackled the thirsty letters,we forbade them to spread the night for usas a cushion, dripping with music, dreams,and warm cups.Why do we fear words?Among them are words of smooth sweetnesswhose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips,and others that, rejoicing in pleasurehave waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes.Words, poetry, tenderlyturned to caress our cheeks, soundsthat, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling,a secret ardor, a hidden longing.Why do we fear words?If their thorns have once wounded us,then they ha

In this episode, India & Samira talk with us about the poem that has been a friend to them – 'On Marriage' from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran.India & Samira joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our Lockdown Exchanges.They are in conversation with Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.**********On MarriageBy Kahlil GibranThen Almitra spoke again and said, Andwhat of Marriage, master?    And he answered saying:    You were born together, and together youshall be forevermore.    You shall be together when the whitewings of death scatter your days.    Ay, you shall be together even in thesilent memory of God.    But let there be spaces in your togetherness,    And let the winds of the heavens dancebetween you.    Love one another, but make not a bondof love:    Let it rather be a moving sea betweenthe shores of your souls.    Fill each other’s cup but drink not fromone cup.    Give one another of your bread but eatnot from the same loaf.    Sing and dance together and be joyous,but let each one of you be alone,    Even as the strings of a lute are alonethough they quiver with the same music.    Give your hearts, but not into eachother’s keeping.    For only the hand of Life can containyour hearts.    And stand together yet not too neartogether:    For the pillars of the temple stand apart,    And the oak tree and the cypress grownot in each other’s shadow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Michael Cooke talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Fisherman' by Dennis Scott.​Michael joined The Poetry Exchange online for one of our Lockdown Exchanges. We are hugely grateful to Michael for spending this time with us and sharing such a beautiful poem and converastion.Michael Cooke is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.The 'gift' reading of 'Fisherman' is by John Prebble.*****Fisherman by Dennis ScottThe scales like metal flint his feet,their empty eyes like me.How gray their colours in the heat!Cool as the oily sea.With gentle hand he slits the heart,and the flesh as white as milkand the ribboned entrails fall apartlike the fall of coiling silk.Some day I too shall fish, and findon stranger shores than thesethe ribs and muscles of my blindself, rainbowed from the seas.From 'Uncle Time' by Dennis Scott, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In our latest episode, Sue Lawther-Brown talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats.We are hugely grateful to Sue for bringing this beautiful poem to us and sharing such a rich and moving conversation.Sue joined us at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich and we are very grateful to the team there for hosting us so warmly.You can discover previous conversations about this poem with different guests on episodes 9 and 26 of our podcast.Michael's play is Tom Fool at Orange Tree Theatre, London.Paul Henry's forthcoming collection 'As If To Sing' is from Seren Books:The 'gift' reading of The Lake Isle of Innisfree is by Fiona Bennett.*********The Lake Isle Of InnisfreeI will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, poet Casey Bailey talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'The Way Home' by Liz Berry.​Casey joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.Casey Bailey is a writer, performer and educator, born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham, UK. Casey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020 - 2022 and the Greater Birmingham Future Face of Arts and Culture 2020.Casey’s second full poetry collection Please Do Not Touch was published by Burning Eye in 2021. Casey’s debut play ‘GrimeBoy’ was commissioned by the Birmingham Rep in 2020. He was commissioned by the BBC to write ‘The Ballad of The Peaky Blinders’ in 2019. In 2020 the poem was internationally recognised, winning a Webby Award. Casey has performed his poetry nationally, and internationally.Casey was named as one of ‘Birmingham Live’s’, Birmingham ’30 under 30’ of 2018, Casey is a Fellow of the University of Worcester and in 2021 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Newman University.www.caseybailey.co.ukThe 'gift' reading of 'The Way Home' is by Roy McFarlane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gill Gregory talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'On the Departure Platform' by Thomas Hardy.Gill joined The Poetry Exchange at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. We are hugely grateful to the National Centre for Writing for hosting us so warmly, and to all the readers who visited us there.Andrea is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'On the Departure Platform' is by Michael Shaeffer.*********On the Departure Platformby Thomas HardyWe kissed at the barrier; and passing throughShe left me, and moment by moment gotSmaller and smaller, until to my view               She was but a spot;A wee white spot of muslin fluffThat down the diminishing platform boreThrough hustling crowds of gentle and rough              To the carriage door.Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,Behind dark groups from far and near,Whose interests were apart from ours,                She would disappear,Then show again, till I ceased to seeThat flexible form, that nebulous white;And she who was more than my life to me                Had vanished quite.We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,And in season she will appear again—Perhaps in the same soft white array—                But never as then !—‘And why, young man, must eternally flyA joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well ?’—O friend, nought happens twice thus ; why,                I cannot tell! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Andrea Holland talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman.​Andrea Holland is a poet and lecturer in Creative Writing. As winner of the Norfolk Commission for Poetry her collection 'Broadcasting' was published in 2013 (Gatehouse Press). The collection focuses on the forced requisition of several Norfolk villages for D-Day training in 1942, and the subsequent dislocation of villagers and community. Her pamphlet, 'Borrowed' (Smith/Doorstop, 2007) was first-stage winner of the Poetry Business Competition 2006. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Mslexia, The North, Rialto, Smith's Knoll, and in Slanted: 12 Poems for Christmas (IST, 2014).Andrea joined us at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. We are hugely grateful to the National Centre for Writing for hosting us so warmly, and to all the readers who visited us there.Andrea is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'Song of Myself' is by Michael Shaeffer.*********From 'Song of Myself'Walt WhitmanI believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,And you must not be abased to the other.Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over upon me,And parted the shirt from my bosom bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stripped heart,And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,And that a kelson of the creation is love,And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heaped stones, elder, mullein and pokeweed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, poet Gregory Leadbetter talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.​Gregory joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;And here were forests ancient as the hills,Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slantedDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!A savage place! as holy and enchantedAs e’er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman wailing for her demon-lover!And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:And mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,Then reached the caverns measureless to man,And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from farAncestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves.It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her

In this episode, Pete Stones talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Old Mary' by Gwendolyn Brooks.​Pete joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute - one of our first in-person exchanges since the pandemic.He is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.'Old Mary' is read by Pete Stones and Fiona Bennett.*********Old Maryby Gwendolyn BrooksMy last defenseIs the present tense.It little hurts me now to knowI shall not goCathedral-hunting in SpainNor cherrying in Michigan or Maine.Reproduced by consent of Brooks Permissions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Dr Maria Augusta Arruda talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Eve Remembering' by Toni Morrison.​Maria joined The Poetry Exchange online for one of our Lockdown Exchanges. She is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'Eve Remembering' is by Fiona Bennett.*****Eve Rememberingby Toni Morrison1I tore from a limb fruit that had lost its green.My hands were warmed by the heat of an appleFire red and humming.I bit sweet power to the core.How can I say what it was like?The taste! The taste undid my eyesAnd led me far from the gardens planted for a childTo wildernesses deeper than any master’s call.2Now these cool hands guide what they once caressed;Lips forget what they have kissed.My eyes now pool their lightBetter the summit to see.3I would do it all over again:Be the harbor and set the sail,Loose the breeze and harness the gale,Cherish the harvest of what I have been.Better the summit to scale.Better the summit to be.From Five Poems (Rainmaker Editions, 2002) by Toni Morrison with silhouettes by Kara Walker. Used with permission from The Believer Magazine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Ana Sampson talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'The Republic of Motherhood' by Liz Berry.Ana Sampson is a highly accomplished poetry editor. She has edited 8 poetry anthologies including 'Night Feeds and Morning Songs: Honest, fierce and beautiful poems about motherhood', as well as 'She is Fierce' and 'She Will Soar' - two bold and brilliant anthologies of women's verse throughout history. Ana's books have sold over 240,000 copies and she writes and speaks often about books and poetry in the media. She has also spoken about the hidden history of women’s writing at bookshops, festivals, libraries, schools and literary events. www.anasampson.co.ukWe are hugely grateful to Liz Berry and Chatto & Windus for allowing us to share Liz's extraordinary poem in this way. You can buy Liz's entire pamphlet - The Republic of Motherhood - here: www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/republic-of-motherhood-liz-berryAna is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Andrea Witzke Slot and John Prebble.The 'gift' reading of 'The Republic of Motherhood' is by Andrea Witzke Slot.*********The Republic of Motherhoodby Liz BerryI crossed the border into the Republic of Motherhoodand found it a queendom, a wild queendom.I handed over my clothes and took its uniform,its dressing gown and undergarments, a cardigansoft as a creature, smelling of birth and milk,and I lay down in Motherhood’s bed, the bed I had madebut could not sleep in, for I was called at once to workin the factory of Motherhood. The owl shift,the graveyard shift. Feedingcleaninglovingfeeding.I walked home, heartsore, through pale streets,the coins of Motherhood singing in my pockets.Then I soaked my spindled bonesin the chill municipal baths of Motherhood,watching strands of my hair float from my fingers.Each day I pushed my pram through freeze and blossomdown the wide boulevards of Motherhoodwhere poplars bent their branches to stroke my brow.I stood with my sisters in the queues of Motherhood—the weighing clinic, the supermarket—waitingfor Motherhood’s bureaucracies to open their doors.As required, I stood beneath the flag of Motherhoodand opened my mouth although I did not know the anthem.When darkness fell I pushed my pram home again,and by lamplight wrote urgent letters of complaintto the Department of Motherhood but received no response.I grew sick and was healed in the hospitals of Motherhoodwith their long-closed isolation wardsand narrow beds watched over by a fat

In this episode, Jessica talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'From Blossoms' by Li-Young Lee.​Jessica joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our Lockdown Exchanges.Jessica works as an Audio Producer with Listening Books, an audiobook lending charity for those that find their illness, mental health, physical or learning disability affects their ability to read the printed word or hold a book.Jessica is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'From Blossoms' is by Michael Shaeffer.*****From Blossoms by Li-Young LeeFrom blossoms comesthis brown paper bag of peacheswe bought from the boyat the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches.From laden boughs, from hands,from sweet fellowship in the bins,comes nectar at the roadside, succulentpeaches we devour, dusty skin and all,comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.O, to take what we love inside,to carry within us an orchard, to eatnot only the skin, but the shade,not only the sugar, but the days, to holdthe fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach.There are days we liveas if death were nowherein the background; from joyto joy to joy, from wing to wing,from blossom to blossom toimpossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.Li-Young Lee, “From Blossoms” from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions Ltd. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special, feature-length episode, pioneering broadcaster, writer and host of On Being, Krista Tippett talks about the poem that has been a friend to her: ‘Good Lord The Light’ by Christian Wiman.Krista Tippett has created a singular space for reflection and conversation in American and global public life. She founded and leads the On Being Project — a groundbreaking media and public life initiative pursuing “deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.” As the creator and host of the Peabody Award-winning On Being radio show, heard on over 400 public radio stations across the US, Tippett takes up the great animating questions of human life: What does it mean to be human, how we do want to live, and who will we be to each other?In 2014, President Obama awarded Krista the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.”Krista is also the author of three books at the intersection of spiritual inquiry, social healing, science, and the arts: Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living; Einstein’s God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit and Speaking of Faith, a memoir of religion in our time.Krista is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.‘Good Lord The Light’ can be found in poet Christian Wiman’s latest collection – ‘Survival is a Style’, from Farrar, Straus and Geroux.You can listen to Krista’s extraordinary range of life-expanding conversations through the On Being podcast – which can be found wherever you get your podcasts and at www.onbeing.org. The 'gift' reading of 'Good Lord The Light' is by Michael Shaeffer.*********GOOD LORD THE LIGHTby Christian WimanGood morning misery,goodbye belief,good Lord the lightcutting across the lakeso long goneto ice —There is an under, always,through which things still move, breathe,and have their being,quick coals and crimsonsno one need seeto see.Good night knowledge,goodbye beyond,good God the winterone must wanderone’s own soulto be.From 'Survival is a Style' - Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 2020) Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_

In this episode, Lewi talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'The Horses' by Ted Hughes.​Lewi joined The Poetry Exchange online as part of Manchester Literature Festival 2020. Lewi is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.The 'gift' reading of 'The Horses' is by Fiona Bennett.*****The Horses By Ted HughesI climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.Evil air, a frost-making stillness,Not a leaf, not a bird-A world cast in frost. I came out above the woodWhere my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.But the valleys were draining the darknessTill the moorline blackening dregs of the brightening greyHalved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:Huge in the dense grey ten togetherMegalith-still. They breathed, making no move,With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,Making no sound.I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.Grey silent fragmentsOf a grey still world.I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.The curlews tear turned its edge on the silence.Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sunOrange, red, red eruptedSilently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,Shook the gulf open, showed blue,And the big planets hangingI turnedStumbling in a fever of a dream, down towardsThe dark woods, from the kindling tops,And came the horses.There, still they stood,But now steaming, and glistening under the flow of light,Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hoovesStirring under a thaw while all around themThe frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.Not one snorted or stamped,Their hung heads patient as the horizons,High over valleys, in the red levelling raysIn din of the crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,May I still meet my memory in so lonely a placeBetween the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,Hearing the horizons endure.New Selected Poems by Ted Hughes. Faber Main edition (6 Mar. 1995) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Fehmida talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou.​Fehmida joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our Lockdown Exchanges, as part of Manchester Literature Festival 2020.You can also find out more about our wonderful guest, Fehmida, and the work she pioneers for women and those who are under-represented in publishing here:www.fehmidamaster.comwww.masterhousepublishing.comFehmida is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.*****You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?’Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops,Weakened by my soulful cries?Does my haughtiness offend you?Don't you take it awful hard’Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin’ in my own backyard.You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Tom talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Aubade' by Philip Larkin.Tom visited The Poetry Exchange in February 2020 for what turned out to be our last live event of the year before the first Covid-19 lockdown. He joined us at beautiful Manchester Central Library and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Al Snell.The 'gift' reading of 'Aubade' is by Al Snell. *****I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.  Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.  In time the curtain-edges will grow light.  Till then I see what’s really always there:  Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,  Making all thought impossible but how  And where and when I shall myself die.  Arid interrogation: yet the dreadOf dying, and being dead,Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse  —The good not done, the love not given, time  Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because  An only life can take so long to climbClear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;  But at the total emptiness for ever,The sure extinction that we travel toAnd shall be lost in always. Not to be here,  Not to be anywhere,And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.This is a special way of being afraidNo trick dispels. Religion used to try,That vast moth-eaten musical brocadeCreated to pretend we never die,And specious stuff that says No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeingThat this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,  No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,  Nothing to love or link with,The anaesthetic from which none come round.And so it stays just on the edge of vision,  A small unfocused blur, a standing chill  That slows each impulse down to indecision.  Most things may never happen: this one will,  And realisation of it rages outIn furnace-fear when we are caught without  People or drink. Courage is no good:It means not scaring others. Being brave  Lets no one off the grave.Death is no different whined at than withstood.Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.  It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,  Have always known, know that we can’t escape,  Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring  In locked-up offices, and all the uncaringIntricate rented world begins to rouse.The sky is white as clay, with no sun.Work has to be done.Postmen like doctors go from house to house.Philip Larkin, "Aubade" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permissi

In this episode, Jenny talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Mushrooms' by Sylvia Plath.Jenny joined The Poetry Exchange online and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.Fiona reads the gift reading of 'Mushrooms'.*****Mushroomsby Sylvia Plath Overnight, veryWhitely, discreetly,Very quietlyOur toes, our nosesTake hold on the loam,Acquire the air.Nobody sees us,Stops us, betrays us;The small grains make room.Soft fists insist onHeaving the needles,The leafy bedding,Even the paving.Our hammers, our rams,Earless and eyeless,Perfectly voiceless,Widen the crannies,Shoulder through holes. WeDiet on water,On crumbs of shadow,Bland-mannered, askingLittle or nothing.So many of us!So many of us!We are shelves, we areTables, we are meek,We are edible,Nudgers and shoversIn spite of ourselves.Our kind multiplies:We shall by morningInherit the earth.Our foot’s in the door.From Collected Poems (1981) by Sylvia Plath, published by Faber and Faber Ltd. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, poet, theologian and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Cuimhne An Uisce' / 'A Recovered Memory of Water' by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon.Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian from Ireland whose poetry and prose has been published widely across Ireland, the US and the UK. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being, a hugely successful podcast where he explores a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing, this podcast had more than a million downloads of its first season.www.padraigotuama.comonbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound​Pádraig joined The Poetry Exchange online and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.​Many thanks to Gallery Press for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. Do visit them for more inspiration here:www.gallerypress.comFiona reads the gift reading of 'A Recovered Memory of Water'.*****Cuimhne An Uisce / A Recovered Memory of Water by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul MuldoonSometimes when the mermaid’s daughteris in the bathroomcleaning her teeth with a thick brushand baking sodashe has the sense the room is fillingwith water.It starts at her feet and anklesand slides further and further upover her thighs and hips and waist.In no timeit’s up to her oxters.She bends down into it to pick uphandtowels and washcloths and all such thingsas are sodden with it.They all look like seaweed—like those long strands of kelp that used to be called‘mermaid-hair’ or ‘foxtail.’Just as suddenly the water recedesand in no timethe room’s completely dry again.A terrible sense of stressis part and parcel of these emotions.At the end of the day she has nothing elseto compare it to.She doesn’t have the vocabulary for any of it.At her weekly therapy sessionshe has more than enough to be going on withjust to describe this strange phenomenonand to express it properlyto the psychiatrist.She doesn’t have the terminologyor any of the points of referenceor any word at all that would give the slightest suggestionas to what water might be.‘A transparent liquid,’ she says, d

In this episode, Charlie talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald.​Charlie joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our 'Lockdown Exchanges' and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett Alistair Snell.​Many thanks to Alice Oswald and United Agents for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. Find out more about Alice and her work here: www.unitedagents.co.uk/alice-oswaldAl reads the gift reading of 'A Short Story of Falling'.*****A Short Story of Falling It is the story of the falling rainto turn into a leaf and fall againit is the secret of a summer showerto steal the light and hide it in a flowerand every flower a tiny tributarythat from the ground flows green and momentaryis one of water's wishes and this talehangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnailif only I a passerby could passas clear as water through a plume of grassto find the sunlight hidden at the tipturning to seed a kind of lifting rain dripthen I might know like water how to balancethe weight of hope against the light of patiencewater which is so raw so earthy-strongand lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks alongdrawn under gravity towards my tongueto cool and fill the pipe-work of this songwhich is the story of the falling rainthat rises to the light and falls againReprinted by permission of Alice Oswald and United AgentsSource: Falling Awake (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, world-renowned actor, Brian Cox CBE talks with us about two poems that have been friends to him – 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robert Burns and 'I am' by John Clare.Brian joined The Poetry Exchange online, from his home, over the course of lockdown in 2020. He is a Scottish actor who works in film, television and theatre, and as a multiple award-winner, has gained huge respect in the industry for the many captivating roles he has undertaken. He us perhaps most recently known for starring in HBO's hugely popular and critically acclaimed television series, 'Succession'.Michael reads the gift reading of 'I Am'.*****Ae Fond Kissby Robert BurnsAe fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fareweel, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me; Dark despair around benights me.I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy; But to see her was to love her; Love but her, and love forever. Had we never lov'd sae kindly, Had we never lov'd sae blindly, Never met—or never parted— We had ne'er been broken-hearted.Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace. enjoyment, love, and pleasure! Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fareweel, alas, forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!*****I Amby John ClareI am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossedInto the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below—above the vaulted sky. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.