Planet Poetry

Send us a textStrap 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. Meanwhile Robin and Peter continue to answer the questions poetry lovers demand to have answered: do poetry pamphlets always have to be invertebrates? And, isn't it time to be a bit less sniffy about Dylan Thomas? We'll also read a delightful poem Please Can I Have a Man from Selima Hill. Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textAw! 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!Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textKerpow! 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? Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textRrrrrrrip! 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!Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textGrip 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.We upload this episode on the day of the UK's General Election... So as well as sprinting to the polling stations, we take a moment to delve into the idea of political poetry. Peter reads I Woke Up by Jameson Fitzpatrick a fine example of how the personal is political, and Robin revisits Adrien Mitchell's poem  To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam). But thanks to Danusha Laméris's poem Small Kindnesses from her collection Bonfire Opera our faith in humanity is rapidly restored. Photo of Jane Commane by Lee TownsendSupport the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

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

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

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

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

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