Planet Poetry (Robin Houghton & Peter Kenny)
Explore every episode of Planet Poetry
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Feb 2022 | Collaboration | Undercurrents - with Joolz Sparkes & Hilaire | 00:56:47 | |
Ding-ding. All aboard! In this episode we ride a big red bus into the heart of London's hidden histories. Robin meets poetical dynamic duo Joolz Sparkes and Hilaire whose beautifully researched collaboration London Undercurrents gives voice to women at pivotal moments in their lives. We catch glimpses of criminal forgers, a clippie tasting heady freedom as she traverses the Thames and a girl dreaming of football glory. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 17 Mar 2022 | Memory | Minutiae - with Jeremy Page | 00:49:49 | |
You remember us. Of course you do! It's your pals at Planet Poetry! Fascinating in-depth conversations with poets and poetry lovers, bardic banter and more . Now spring is in the air, we have a spanking new episode featuring writer and poet Jeremy Page. With him we'll delve into The Naming a collection that braves the shifting sands of unreliable memories and the words we use to describe them. Plus we hear what keeps Jeremy as engaged as ever, after decades of his editorship of the The Frogmore Papers - now nearing 100 issues. Plus Robin and Peter mull over their personal reading: from marvelling at the flying worm in the poetry of William Blake to slithering an exploratory tendril into Kay Syrad's collection of lusciously mossy poetry what is near. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 07 Apr 2022 | Joy | Grief - with Sasha Dugdale | 00:52:06 | |
Then what angelic vision is this? It's Sasha Dugdale sharing poetry from her award-garlanded Carcanet collection Joy including an excerpt from the title poem in the voice of William Blake's wife Catherine. And in her latest work Deformations Sasha tackles, among other things, the conflicted legacy of Eric Gill. Plus Robin pines for more work by Sam Willetts, reflecting on his collection New Light for the Old Dark while Peter manages a complete U-turn about Mary Oliver and we dip back into Twitter for another thorny issue. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 05 May 2022 | Distance | Desolation - with J.O. Morgan | 01:01:46 | |
Strap in! We're going boldly into interplanetary space -- and returning to see our own planet through alien eyes. J.O. Morgan tells us about his lates poetry collection The Martian’s Regress from Cape Poetry -- an epic, gripping sequence about a martian and his pale companion investigating a dead and sterile earth. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 26 May 2022 | Serious | Playful - with Caleb Parkin | 00:59:56 | |
This episode of Planet Poetry sees us striding forth with our seriousness only outdone by the luminosity of our socks... Caleb Parkin entices us with his seriously playful take on eco poetry with readings from his vibrant collection This Fruiting Body. Meanwhile Peter wanders into the Roman ruins of Bath as we look at one of the earliest English poems The Ruin (in its translation by Michael Alexander) while Robin contemplates John Donne's Woman's Constancy . Plus, prompted by a thoughtful piece in The Dark Horse by Maitreyabandhu we reflect on the rigour of criticism in contemporary poetry, and indeed on our own podcast itself. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 23 Jun 2022 | Postmodern | Precision - with Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino | 00:49:02 | |
Fasten your safety belt and jet with us over to New York where we try to get a grip on the elusive eel of postmodernism. Who better to talk to than Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino? He edits the outstanding postmodern magazine eratio and is author of an impressive body of postmodern work, which takes poetry, novels and critical theory into its ambit. A selection is available in The Wet Motorcycle and other work available here. Gregory's rigour is unquestionable. Baffling or spellbinding? You decide. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 14 Jul 2022 | Ep 13 - Season Finale with Fiona Sampson | 01:01:56 | |
Whew. What a scorcher! And the weather's hot too. Slip on your shades, and listen to our interview with the incredibly talented Fiona Sampson, about her subtly structured collection Come Down, and wander with her into organic and resonant evocations of nature infused with memories and undermined by loss. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 13 Oct 2022 | Season 3 opener: Kim Moore | 00:52:26 | |
A tantalising twinkle on your favourite device? Relax! It’s Planet Poetry surging back with Season Three! Onboard for Episode 1 is Kim Moore, talking about All The Men I Never Married, from Seren — a powerful work... Compelling, complex and empathetic. No wonder it is currently Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. Plus your favourite podcasters discuss their holiday reading — Robin touches on Helen Dunmore's Inside The Wave, England's Green by Zaffar Kunial, and Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar. Peter mentions The Axion Esti by Odysseus Elytis and then talks sheer nonsense — unapologetically galumphing into Lewis Caroll’s Jabberwocky. It's great to be back!
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 03 Nov 2022 | Masculinity | Men - with Peter Raynard | 00:53:55 | |
Forging manfully through cyberspace just to be with you... Robin and Peter are back with another cracking episode featuring Peter Raynard, who guides us through his elegiac, furious and moving book Manland from Nine Arches Press. We'll hear how Peter Raynard's experiences of growing up working class in Coventry has stimulated this bracing poetic reappraisal of what it means to be a man -- from toxic masculinity to little kisses. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 17 Nov 2022 | Epic | Exploration - with Shane McCrae | 00:52:08 | |
Here we go again, blazing through the vast firmaments... We go all starry and stripy this week as we meet Shane McCrae - one of the US's most celebrated new poets - to be awed by the Miltonic vastness of an imagination that electrifies his collections Cain Named The Animal and Sometimes I Never Suffered. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 01 Dec 2022 | Thinking | Rethinking - with Sarah Barnsley | 00:55:56 | |
What's that popping and blazing from your favourite podcast device? A plethora of lightbulb moments, that's what. This episode features an in depth conversation with Sarah Barnsley whose bravura first collection The Thoughts has been published by Smith | Doorstop. With immense originality she deals with the intrusive thoughts that are a hallmark of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as well as recovery, love and White Bears. Meanwhile Robin tries to unfold the mysteries of Black Fens viral a poem sequence full of musicality by Frances Presley. Peter tells us how he has fallen under the siren spell of Stigmata a collection of essays by Hélèn Cixous published by Routledge. Plus there's the usual poetry based banter, and a delicate whiff of roasted coffee beans. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 15 Dec 2022 | Foreign | Belonging - with Matthew Stewart | 00:53:10 | |
What's that? The airy caper of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and their mates? No it's Planet Poetry bringing you Matthew Stewart, who - by some uncanny podcast magic - is sheltering from the sweltering heat of the Spanish sun. His collection The Knives of Villalejo provides clues to what could have coaxed a poet from the cul-de-sacs of suburban Surrey to the vineyards of Extremadura. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 19 Jan 2023 | Airborne | Afterwardness - with Mimi Khalvati | 01:00:41 | |
Hop aboard! And join your Planet Poetry pals as we bravely embark on a new year. Strap in beside a child of six -- flying away from her family, culture and language -- to arrive, wordlessly, in a new country and a new life. Mimi Khalvati shares poems from her exquisite Carcanet collection Afterwardness and relives the journey that utterly changed the course of her life. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 23 Feb 2023 | Asterisks | Alternatives - with Mark Fiddes | 00:54:05 | |
Stop polishing that halo for a moment and listen to this! It's Mark Fiddes reading from his Live Cannon collection *Other Saints Are Available - a series of vivid and memorable footnotes to an increasingly polarised world... All via men roaring into flame from the neck up, the haircuts of Burnley defenders, brash parakeets and much more. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 16 Mar 2023 | Pacing | Preserving - with Robert Hamberger | 00:58:43 | |
Strap on your toughest boots. Now dodge the speeding cars as we match strides with Robert Hamberger. We discuss two works: his exceptional poetry collection Blue Wallpaper and his memoir A Length of Road -- recalling a time when Robert (facing a life crisis) retraced the footsteps of the 'peasant poet' John Clare who had, in 1841, escaped an asylum in Epping Forest. Robert walked the same 80 miles as John Clare, who had walked to Northamptonshire in the vain hope of finding Mary, his first love. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 06 Apr 2023 | Black Country | Lost Wum - with Liz Berry | 00:59:35 | |
Keep the carriage curtains open as we chug into the post-industrial midlands of The Black Country. We're in the company of Liz Berry as she coins resonant new myths from her midland's dialect word hoard. But next stop is Liverpool, following orphaned Eliza The Home Child as she sets off for Nova Scotia in Berry's heartbreaking, just-published novel in verse about a girl sent to work as an indentured servant. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 27 Apr 2023 | Trust | Betrayal - with Clare Best | 00:59:15 | |
If you have endured a childhood overshadowed by profound betrayal and abuse, how do you learn to trust again? What kind of bravery must this take? We feature Clare Best reading from her poetry collections, Excisions and Each Other and also discuss her memoir The Missing List - written during the last illness of the father who had abused her as a child – described as ‘an important, essential text in the context of the #MeToo movement’. Plus we enjoy an early glimpse into her poised and beautiful collection Beyond the Gate due later this year from Worple Press. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 25 May 2023 | Looking | Relooking - with Greta Stoddart | 00:53:40 | |
Did you ever repeat a word so often that its meaning ebbed away? Or look so hard at an object -- say a glass of water -- that it began to hint at unknowable mysteries? No? Then you should join us as we meet Greta Stoddart and hear poetry from her new Bloodaxe collection Fool which will take you to an extraordinary place in your imagination where 'nothing might be what is called for'. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 15 Jun 2023 | Play | Wonder - with Rachel Piercey & Kate Wakeling | 00:56:05 | |
Pens down, everybody! Now look at me... Today we meet poets Kate Wakeling and Rachel Piercey, editor of Tyger Tyger Magazine, who will share insights about writing poetry for children -- the language, considerations and freedoms. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | Culture | Cut-ups - with Richard Skinner | 01:02:30 | |
Follow us as we slip into le Quartier asiatique through a noirish wordscape, when the flutes in the musique concrète are interrupted by David Bowie, Kate Bush and Genesis… Suddenly you realise you are hearing Richard Skinner sharing poems from his collections Dream Into Play (Poetry Salzburg 2022) and White Noise Machine (Salt 2023). Wait! What’s he doing with those scissors? Oh my God… Is that the future leaking out? Cut to a potting shed of an English garden: a pot of basil, poems plastered on the wall, and a black cat dawdling by the doorway. Flowerpot people, Robin and Peter, are to be discovered sipping beers and ruminating on Planet Poetry’s wonderful third season guests. They are wishing you a wonderful summer and thanking you for lending us your ears. If the slugs don’t get them, they’ll be back in the Autumn. Thank you for listening! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 24 Aug 2023 | Archive | Pascale Petit in Oct 2020 | 00:30:10 | |
Summertime. Ho, hum. But wait! What's this on your device. Planet Poetry? Robin and Peter have descended into The Vaults to present a conversation first broadcast in October 2020 with the fabulous Pascale Petit. Enjoy! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 14 Sep 2023 | Archive | Charlotte Gann in January 2021 | 00:28:17 | |
Another absolute sparkler from our trove of first season interviews. Charlotte Gann talks about her exceptional Happenstance Press collections, Noir, and The Girl Who Cried. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 31 Aug 2023 | Archive | Clare Shaw in November 2020 | 00:19:37 | |
Another gem from the archives to tide you over the long, hot (?) summer of 2023...the brilliant Clare Shaw was our second interviewee on the podcast back in 2020, and here she is talking to Robin about her 2018 Bloodaxe collection Flood. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 28 Sep 2023 | Archive | Kathryn Maris in March 2021 | 00:25:14 | |
We revisit the Spring of 2021 and Robin's interview with Kathryn Maris, principally about her collection The House with only and Attic and a Basement (Penguin, 2018). Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 12 Oct 2023 | Observation | Celebration - with Ian McMillan | 01:05:12 | |
Hush your vuvuzela! Barnsley's own Ian McMillan lobs the keeper and helps Planet Poetry's fourth season start with a belting win. He treats us to selections from To Fold The Evening Star, New and Selected Poems from Carcanet as well as his smith|doorstop pamphlet, Yes But What Is This? What Exactly? Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 02 Nov 2023 | Aloneness | Liberty - with Leontia Flynn | 00:50:13 | |
All aboard! Planet Poetry is going to rattle you into a Belfast haunted by absence. Here you'll meet Leontia Flynn and discover how the upheavals of Brexit and the pandemic have been echoed by ruptures and aloneness in her own life. Her magnificent response is the spare and intensely-moving collection Taking Liberties from Cape. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 23 Nov 2023 | Bridges | Broken - with Martyn Crucefix | 01:02:34 | |
Go on. We dare you to reach across the gulf to Planet Poetry. This time you'll find Martyn Crucefix, reading poems from his Salt collection Between A Drowning Man. This ambitious, timely work depicts the isolation and polarisation brought about by Brexit, Populism, social media and more. A deep and subtle work that reflects these troubled times, and yearns towards empathy. Then let's delight in a poem from Clare Best’s new book Beyond The Gate and gaze into the mutable future: reporting back from a first encounter with Changing by Richard Berengarten, a magnum opus inspired by a lifetime of association with the I Ching -- the ancient Chinese text used for divination. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 15 Dec 2023 | Crossings | Christmas - with Jane Clarke | 01:01:53 | |
Psssst! Here's a moment of reprieve from the festive frenzy... Follow Jane Clarke wobbling on an oak log slick with frost, then she smooths us down a butter path to a place of poetry. Here we revel in the beauty and quiet authority of Jane's collection A Change in the Air shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot prize among others. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 04 Jan 2024 | Archive | Kim Moore from October 2022 | 00:30:29 | |
Happy New Year! We're on our festive break, but wanted to share with you another classic interview from the archive. Here's Kim Moore talking about her Forward Prize-winning collection 'All the Men I Never Married' from Seren Books. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 18 Jan 2024 | Darkness | Discovered - with Tamar Yoseloff | 01:01:45 | |
We are back and delighted to bring you more wonderful poetry in 2024. So let's illuminate the new year with Tamar Yoseloff, whose long engagement with visual art has created a poetry that blazes out against a black backdrop. We’ll hear poems from two Seren collections A Formula for Night her New and Selected poems and The Black Place (2019). Plus we will get a preview of her forthcoming collection Belief Systems from Nine Arches. And we discuss the highly impressive Self-Portrait as Othello Carcanet Poetry (2023) by Jason Allen-Paisant a deserved winner of this year’s TS Eliot prize -- and talk about a little known scribbler called William Shakespeare. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 08 Feb 2024 | Sorrow | Stored - with Paul Stephenson | 00:57:10 | |
Go on. Press the button. Paul Stephenson guides us through a choice of his varied, formally diverse and moving elegies in his Carcanet collection Hard Drive -- written in the years following his partner's sudden death -- and find a curiously life-affirming exploration of grief and its aftermath. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 07 Mar 2024 | Archive - Inua Ellams from March 2021 | 00:33:32 | |
A classic interview from the archive: Inua Ellams talking about his extraordinary book The Actual (Penned in the Margins, 2020), a powerful, personal and often very funny collection that pokes a sharp stick at the legacy of British Empire, foolish machismo, hero culture, relationships and much more. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 21 Mar 2024 | Rapture | Reality - with Seán Hewitt | 01:03:50 | |
We’re back with global ambitions for World Poetry Day. First we skip over to Dublin to interview Seán Hewitt about his gorgeous second collection Rapture’s Road, published 2024 by Cape. Enriched by the traditions of Irish poetry, Seán’s work speaks unflinchingly to contemporary issues as well as conjuring moments of absolute beauty from language. Robin and Peter learn more about International Poetry Day, and Robin discovers a fabulous poem by Netherlands poet Marjolijn van Heemstra. Meanwhile Peter has immersed himself in the pages of Living in Language, International reflections for the practising poet, edited by Erica Hesketh, and finds himself wowed by South Korea’s Lee Hyemi, and Somali-born Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 11 Apr 2024 | Testaments | Troubles - with Roy McFarlane | 01:06:57 | |
Hop aboard. No time to idle in green pastures here, instead let’s follow Roy Mc Farlane as he guides us through his collection Living by Troubled Waters from Nine Arches Press weaving the toxic legacy of slavery in the complexity and warmheartedness of his own personal history. Plus we glance at a gorgeous poem, Leaves, from Ursula K. Le Guin, mull over the latest winner of the UK’s National Poetry Competition, The Time I Was Mugged in New York City, by Imogen Wade, and stroke our chins over idea of magazines long-listing their contributors. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 02 May 2024 | Absence | Accidents - with Ali Lewis | 01:02:35 | |
Staring at the mark on the wall where that painting once hung? Wondering why the moon, seen by others, has been hidden from you? You've entered the world of Absence (Cheerio Poetry 2024) by Ali Lewis. He guides us through this exceptional first collection, from the painful ache of lost love, to the possibilities unleashed by running over a pheasant. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 23 May 2024 | Bold Lines | Black Pages - with Seni Seneviratne | 00:48:29 | |
Silent faces and displaced lives. Seni Seneviratne gives voice to overshadowed Black children, exotic pages and servants in the portraits of nobility and the mercantile class in 18th Century paintings. Other of her poised and beautiful poems, from The Go-Away Bird from Peepal Tree Press, are infused with bird imagery, and the migrations of travellers going deeper into themselves. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 14 Jun 2024 | Fathers | Frontiers - with Rory Waterman | 00:59:10 | |
Hear Rory Waterman describe his experience of being stuck in quarantine in Korea, where (as well as doing press ups) he used his time to begin his fourth collection Come Here to This Gate, from Carcanet Poetry. He tells us about Korea's DMZ, hilarious Lincolnshire folk tales, and we explore an exceptionally moving sequence about the death of his troubled father. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 04 Jul 2024 | Lost trades | Lost songs - with Jane Commane | 01:05:40 | |
Grip the square steering wheel of your Austin Allegro and let Jane Commane navigate you through the haunted places of the post-industrial Midlands. She treats us to poems from Assembly Lines published by Bloodaxe including UnWeather, quite possibly the best Brexit response we've heard. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 25 Jul 2024 | Vigils | Confabulations - with Robin Houghton & Peter Kenny | 00:47:13 | |
Rrrrrrrip! Yikes! That’s the sound of the Planet Poetry rulebook being wantonly torn in half for our Season 4 finale. For one episode only Robin and Peter abandon their solemn vow and share some of their own poetry from forthcoming Pindrop and Mariscat publications. Then, under the chalky Sussex cliffs, we bask in recollections of another glorious season peppered with wonderful conversations with superb and entertaining guests. We want to thank you dear listener for lending us your ears. Have a glorious summer! We’ll be back with a spanking new season in October. Oi! That blinking gull’s got its beak in my chips! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 17 Oct 2024 | Afropessimism | Affirmation - with Danez Smith | 01:06:36 | |
Kerpow! The poetry fireworks are back. We spark our fifth season into life with Danez Smith – who shares poems from their astonishing collection Bluff (published by Vintage Penguin 2024), destined to be one of the books of the decade. Danez discusses everything from Afropessimism to the power of water as a metaphor. Plus we hear poems that are conscious and politically-electrified, as well as tender and vulnerable poetry about love and the transformational power of poetry itself. Expect the usual back-to-school bantz from Robin and Peter, plus we dip into the poetry of exile with a fabulous poem from Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi from his collection A Friend’s Kitchen, one of the World Poet Series editions published by the Poetry Translation Centre, we hear an astonishing poem by Tony Hoagland from his final collection Turn Up The Ocean. And we’ll remember the passing of New Zealand born Fleur Adcock who died this month. Thanks for being here with us in our new season. It’s delightful to be back. Now... Where are those sparklers? Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 07 Nov 2024 | Cuteness | Weirdness - with Isabel Galleymore | 01:00:29 | |
Aw! You’re squishably cute! Yes you, dear listener. In this episode we meet Isabel Galleymore and hear from her highly original collection Baby Schema, published by Carcanet. Tempted into a big-eyed world of Disneyfied cuteness you’ll find things getting increasingly weird as Isabel examines its distorting relationship with nature, business, human relationships… and more. Plus Robin reports back to us from The Foyle Young Poets of the Year awards and reads the poem Loud by Indy Moon. Peter makes some excuse to read the timeless To Autumn, by John Keats. Then, accompanied by a wailful choir of small gnats, your podcast pals are borne aloft… Till next time… Adieu! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 28 Nov 2024 | Seasons | Filsket Seas - with Martin Malone | 00:56:26 | |
Strap on your best boots, and follow Martin Malone as he shoulders through the seasons on the rugged granite of Aberdeenshire's north sea coast, pondering nature, ecology, human resilience and frailty in his collection Gardenstown, from Broken Sleep Books , a beautiful collaboration with artist Bryan Angus. And we'll loiter in an English outfield hoping to catch poems from his Selected Poems 2005-2020, Larksong Static from Hedgehog Press about the First World War and a lonely bar in Manhattan. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 16 Oct 2020 | Planet Poetry | Trailer | 00:01:18 | |
Welcome to Planet Poetry, the new poetry podcast produced and presented by Peter Kenny and Robin Houghton. Join us as we explore the world of poetry, talking with editors, influencers, poets and even non-poets. We'll also chat about what we've enjoyed reading lately, argue over thorny issues and generally chew the poetry cud over the odd pint. Interviewees include Pascale Petit, Clare Shaw, Sarah Salway, Mario Petrucci and many more! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 22 Oct 2020 | Home | Family - with Pascale Petit | 00:46:03 | |
Ready to explore Planet Poetry? In our first episode we meet multi-award winning poet Pascale Petit and discover the lush Edens of her poetry. Hear Pascale talk frankly about the troubling shadows cast by her mother and father on her life and work. Enjoy her readings from several collections, including the recently published Tiger Girl, which describes the sanctuary offered by her relationship with her Indian grandmother. In this episode Robin and Peter also share thoughts about Home Farm by Janet Sutherland and Wild Nights: New & Selected Poems by Kim Addonizio. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 05 Nov 2020 | Climate | Weather | Rain - with Clare Shaw and Elizabeth Murtough | 00:40:58 | |
Water, water everywhere! This week we interview Clare Shaw, who discusses and reads from her book Flood triggered by the flooding of her hometown in 2015 -- and the upwelling of emotion caused by the breakdown of a relationship, and the dark currents of wider narratives. Plus we chat with Elizabeth Murtough co-editor of Channel, Ireland's Environmentalist Literary Magazine. Meanwhile Peter reads a poem by Edward Thomas and Robin one by Alice Oswald, and there's a bit of chat about poetry magazines... Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 19 Nov 2020 | Close-Up - with Katrina Porteous and Sarah Salway | 00:51:51 | |
It's all in the detail... Katrina Porteous takes us from the micro quantum world beyond human vision out to the furthest reaches of the universe as we discuss her Bloodaxe collection Edge, and Sarah Salway shares her insights on close observation for poets, books she goes back to, and her collection Digging up Paradise. Plus, our random musings on fireworks and plant names, and Peter introduces us to Greek poet Katerina Angelaki-Rooke. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 03 Dec 2020 | Uncanny | Unsettling - with Tess Jolly and Krishan Coupland | 00:50:10 | |
Is that glass eye staring at you? In this episode we persuade Tess Jolly to tell us about her dark alchemy, transforming fear into hauntingly beautiful poetry. She shares some spine-tinglers from her published work, including her new Blue Diode collection, Breakfast at the Origami Cafe. We quiz Krishan Coupland editor of Neon , the literary magazine with flavours of horror and science fiction, and learn about the dreamlike qualities that unnerve and excite him. Plus Robin and Peter swap tips on what to do when your poetry submissions are rejected. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 17 Dec 2020 | Bliss | Happiness - with Jack Underwood | 00:48:01 | |
Christmas is coming and we're feeling blissed out.... or are we? The title of Jack Underwood's collection Happiness makes Robin happy, but so do Christmas carols, and nothing is ever as it seems on the surface. Meanwhile Peter gets all lyrical about lights and the seasonal slow boat to Guernsey, and in an extended book reviews segment we chew over some of our favourite collections this year including John McCullough's Reckless Paper Birds, Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic, Maureen N. McLane's What I'm Looking For and Caleb Femi's Poor. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 07 Jan 2021 | Science | Spirit - with Mario Petrucci | 00:37:09 | |
Happy New Year! What better way to start the year than with some poetic banter from Robin and Peter? For the first Planet Poetry episode of 2021 we invite Mario Petrucci to take us on his extraordinary poetic pilgrimage from science to spirit. Mario reads from acclaimed collections, including his spanking new book: afterlove (and as a special Planet Poetry bonus get a free book from Mario Petrucci's back catalogue). Plus Robin and Peter steel themselves to seize their latest thorny issue: the prose poem and chat about Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 21 Jan 2021 | Anxiety | Comfort - with Charlotte Gann | 00:45:40 | |
You're not alone. It's not just you who thinks weird things. Join your pals Robin and Peter for a jaunt to Planet Poetry. This episode features Charlotte Gann who, in her collection Noir, leads us through the mazy streets of her shadowy, filmic imagination -- only to introduce us to the tear-inducing honesty of her latest book, The Girl Who Cried. Meanwhile Robin and Peter's January reading has ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous: from Dante falling in love with his Beatrice in La Vita Nuova over 700 years ago, to punk poet John Cooper Clarke's wry, cheerfully unsentimental autobiography I Wanna Be Yours. Plus you can expect the usual bardic banter and a thorny issue: are writing prompts a waste of time? Enjoy! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 04 Feb 2021 | Camouflage | Revealing - with Mary Jean Chan | 00:45:48 | |
This week, hear Mary Jean Chan discuss and read from Flèche, her award-winning debut collection of growing up and coming out. Cultures clash, family expectations are questioned and identity is explored. What happens when the protective gear comes off? We're going into combat, but in a spirit of peace-keeping and love. Meanwhile Peter is in awe of feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde and Robin celebrates white jeans and wonders why Hubert Moore isn't better known. Plus, fancy a guest moment on Planet Poetry? We've got a new idea we'd like to try, and it involves you! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 18 Feb 2021 | Arrivals | Departures - with Rhona McAdam | 00:44:22 | |
Itching to get away? Then hop aboard Planet Poetry and we'll catapult you to Canada, where we chat with Rhona McAdam and delve into the many treasures of a back catalogue punctuated by the arrivals and departures of a life spent between two continents -- and we'll sneak a morsel of her forthcoming collection 'Larder'. Plus Robin and Peter discuss their reading of Rachael Boast and Jackie Wills. Amid the bardic bandinage your hosts also make time to share ill-informed opinions about what constitutes an emerging poet... Get a wiggle on! That's your name they're calling, isn't it? Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 04 Mar 2021 | Colonialism | Reconciliation - with Inua Ellams | 00:51:12 | |
In this episode Inua Ellams talks to us about his extraordinary book The Actual (Penned in the Margins, 2020), a powerful, personal and often very funny collection that pokes a sharp stick at the legacy of British Empire, foolish machismo, hero culture, relationships and much more. Also, Peter sketches for us the story of the Négritude movement and its poets Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, and we finish as ever with a bit of banter over those 'banned' words... speaking of which, **please note that this episode contains expletives.** Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 25 Mar 2021 | Xs & Os | zeros and ones - with Kathryn Maris | 00:46:22 | |
Enigmatic 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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 08 Apr 2021 | Time | Translation - The Sarah Maguire Prize with Alireza Abiz, Yang Lian & Brian Holton | 00:51:56 | |
Welcome 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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 29 Apr 2021 | Untold | Unspoken - with LeAnne Howe | 00:47:22 | |
We’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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 13 May 2021 | Publishing | Not Publishing - with JT Welsch | 00:48:10 | |
To 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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 27 May 2021 | Playfulness | Persistence - with John McCullough | 00:49:26 | |
Is 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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 18 Jun 2021 | Real | Surreal - with Helen Ivory | 00:53:16 | |
Welcome 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! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 15 Jul 2021 | Selfhood | Sovereignty - with Rishi Dastidar | 00:53:52 | |
Is 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... Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 30 Sep 2021 | Season 2 opener: Kim Addonizio | 00:57:10 | |
Kerpow! 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! Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 21 Oct 2021 | Empathy | Affirmation - with Ashanti Anderson | 00:53:43 | |
Want 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. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 11 Nov 2021 | Cinematic | Demotic - with Martina Evans | 00:52:37 | |
Fabulous 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'. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 02 Dec 2021 | Sympathy | Uncensored - with Alireza Abiz | 00:56:24 | |
You know us. At Planet Poetry we are always mooning around thinking about poetry instead of doing the laundry. But imagine if you had to haggle with a censor just to get your words read... Or had to account for your personal morality to an interrogator. Discovering the subtly devastating poetry of The Kindly Interrogator by Alireza Abiz (Shearsman books translated by the author and W.N. Herbert) will remind you of the fragility of the freedom many of us take for granted. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 21 Dec 2021 | Publisher | Poets - with Sharon Black & Di Slaney | 01:00:33 | |
We see you. Covered in tinsel and cavorting with Dancer, Prancer, Vixen and the rest of those red nosed reindeers. Luckily here is a treat you can open immediately! Our interview with two inspiring poet publishers - Sharon Black of Pindrop Press, and Di Slaney of Candlestick Press - who share the proximity of goats but have distinct approaches to publishing. Plus Di Slaney treats us to a poem from Herd Queen (Valley Press) and Sharon Black shares a poem from her perfectly-formed pamphlet Rib (published by Wayleave Press). Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||
| 27 Jan 2022 | Eels | Elements - with Janet Sutherland | 00:58:09 | |
Welcome home! Now slip off your raincoat and settle down in the flickering firelight. Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets. | |||