Planet Poetry

Send us a textIs it a bird? Is it a plane? Planet Poetry is swooping through the air with Hawthornden Prize winner John McCullough tucked under its origami wing. John entices us with his three poetry collections: The Frost Fairs (Salt Publishing), Spacecraft and Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins), and praises the virtues of playful language and learning your craft. We'll take in roof-removing storms, vanished Old English letters and Lady Gaga.  Plus Peter is enticed into Babylonian shenanigans by The Epic of Gilgamesh, and Robin beguiles us with how to extricate yourself  a magical debut collection from Laura Theis. Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textTo publish or not to publish? Join us as we venture into the shadowy world of poetry publishing. Do instapoets endanger traditional publishing or help it to quietly flourish? Is the whole thing shapeshifting into something new and exciting? The person clutching the torch and heading into the dark is poet and academic JT Welsch who has written the first book-length study of the contemporary poetry industry. And the good news is it's not all bad news. Meanwhile Peter is still wistful about seizing the means of poetry production and trying to ignite a revolution, while Robin confesses that it's all about seeing her poems in glorious print. Plus, we'll dip a tentacle into the surreal world of  Guillaume Apollinaire and Robin enjoys an irreverent poem that stealth bombed its way into The North.Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textWe’re back! In this episode we encounter esteemed poet, writer and scholar LeAnne Howe — who talks about the extraordinary Norton anthology of Native Nations poetry ‘When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through’ she edited with Joy Harjo and Jennifer Elise Foerster which highlights the untold stories of people from the Native Nations. She also gives us an insight into how her Chocktaw heritage enriches her own poetry. Plus Robin and Peter share their opinions about a venerable UK poetry magazine, terrible haikus and Nothing in particular.  Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textWelcome to our translation special! Join Robin and Peter as we take a deep dive into the  Sarah Maguire Prize 2020. We ask Chairman of the judges, the Persian poet and translator, Alireza Abiz about poetry from Iraq, Korea, Japan, Mexico, and Syria and and ponder the nature of time, Mandarin and poetry with the legendary Chinese poet Yang Lian. Plus we speak to his long-term translator Brian Holton to celebrate the work of the translator.  Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textEnigmatic hey? That's Planet Poetry for you. Welcome back!  This week we are delighted to hear from exiled New Yorker Kathryn Maris who shares her strange and sometimes hilarious tall tales (full of unheroic and unreliable protagonists) from her collection The House with Only an Attic and a Basement.  Plus Robin gets a bit starry and stripy reading US magazines Rattle and Poetry -- and uncovers a can of worms.  Peter, meanwhile, thinks he's glimpsed poetry's gleaming future, and it's bleeping brilliant! Robin remains strangely underwhelmed.   Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!

Send us a textIn 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.**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 textItching 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?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 textThis 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!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 textYou'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!  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 textHappy 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.  Support the showPlanet Poetry is a labour of love!If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!