Cor what a scorcher! Time to bask in the company of Will Harris. You will delight in his fresh and distinct style, with cuttlefish-fast leaps of metaphor and imagery as we explore his two Granta volumes, RENDANG published in 2020 and Brother Poem (2023). His multileveled work finds inspiration in Jakarta and London, the contemporary experience of a dual heritage, and by looking sideways at an imagined brother. 

Expect the usual poetic bants from Robin and Peter as we check into Hotel Petroleum (Broken Sleep Books) by Mark Fiddes. Enjoy the subtleties of Intimate Architecture (Blue Diode) by Tess Jolly, and explore the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path with Judith Shaw's pamphlet, The Land Called Me Back. Plus we enjoy Martha Sprackland’s fine translation for Penguin: Dark Night, by John of the Cross.

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Another gem from the Archive: Paul Stephenson, interviewed in 2024 about his debut collection Hard Drive (Carcanet).

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Plump up your pillows! Planet poetry is back with Mara Bergman. We'll trace a journey from New York state  to the UK, sharing poems from The Disappearing Room and The Night We Were Dylan Thomas, both published by ARC.  Her photographic, poignant, sometimes humorous eye for detail will draw you into a narratives with unpredictable conclusions. Will you meet your husband? Will you become engulfed by the sofa in cream coloured room? You must find out.

Meanwhile Peter marks the passing of the high modernist J.H.Prynne, and Robin reports hotfoot from Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair -- where she uncovers a wealth of exuberant creativity.

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We're going back to September 2021 for this interview with the fabulous Kim Addonizio...

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 Minneapolis is once again facing violence and repression. From afar we watch in horror, and in this episode from our archive featuring Danez Smith we offer our solidarity with the people of Minnesota. Originally recorded in October 2024, Peter speaks with Danez about their remarkable collection Bluff (Chatto & Windus), much of which is rooted in life in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s tragic that one of our favourite interviews now sounds like a missive from a more hopeful time.

Planet Poetry will return with a brand-new episode in the spring.

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Never mind the baubles... Here's the magic from Niall Campbell, who shares spellbinding poems from his Bloodaxe collection The Island in the Sound, which blend unique elements from his South Uist upbringing into a meditative, sometimes joyful poetry that weaves history, literature, folklore with the lives of ordinary people.

Plus your podcast stocking is positively bulging with other goodies. Robin and Peter share a poem from Mat Riches, a dip into yellow noon-day a new collection by Kay Syrad from Cinnamon Press, the poem Argonauts, by George Seferis plus a spirited rendition of A Visit from St. Nicholas, by  Clement Clarke Moore. Allegedly...

Happy holidays everyone!    

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Surprise! We're back again and starting Season Six with a distinctive Black Country jewel from our trove of interviews. Liz Berry delighted us all in April 2023 when she spoke with Robin about her (then) new collection, The Home Child (Vintage). Hear her read from that and also from her Forward Prize-winning Black Country (2014, Chatto & Windus). Well worth hearing again. Stay tuned... There's more to come from Planet Poetry.

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Join your podcast pals at a table at the Beachy Head pub. Enjoying a view of  sloping fields down to the Belle Tout Lighthouse and the sea beyond and take a moment to reflect on another season of Planet Poetry podcasts. Over spent packets of crisps and peanuts we revisit conversations with Danez Smith, Isabel Galleymore, Richard Scott and Isabelle Baafi chosen from among the panoply of marvellous guests we've had this season.  

As ever, thank you for lending us your ears. Look for us in the Autumn and for the time being, we wish you a splendid and memorable summer. 

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It's a tag team episode! With Robin and Peter meeting poet Charles G Lauder, Jr  and publisher poet Jo Colley of Blueprint Poetry Press - who have published his 2025 pamphlet Year of the Rat, a profound collection informed by long engagement with Daoism. Also we speak to Jo Colley, who with Julie Hogg, runs  Blueprint Poetry Press. Jo tells us what moved her about Charles's work, and shares insights into the selection and editing process and the sheer pleasure that publishing fine poets brings - as well as the balance between her own poetry practice and publishing.    

Robin discovers spare and lovely work by Ritchie McCaffery, whose pamphlet Skail just published by New Walk Editions.  And Peter is shocked to find himself enjoying Frank O'Hara's poem Why I Am Not a Painter.

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What was that? A bat or swallow? Something flitted past, but we can't agree on what we've just seen ... Erica McAlpine reads from Small Pointed Things (just published by Carcanet) that makes that uncertain territory her own,  with meticulously crafted poems that harbour hard questions.

And talking of things that flit past your window, Peter gets an early look at White Teeth, Red Blood, selected Vampire Verses published shortly by Pushkin Press. We'll listen to John Keats's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci', and hear why the knight is alone and palely loitering... Meanwhile Robin discovers Hope Mirrlees, and a long Modernist poem 'Paris' - which predated Old Possum's 'The Waste Land' by two years. Plus we read an affectionate poem by Tim Relf, for Father's Day. 

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Still life? Not as we know it. Trembling with tension and beauty, and roses that cup darkness and secret trauma... Hear Richard Scott share from his extraordinary new collection That Broke into Shining Crystals, just published by Faber. This is brave and shining poetry, timeless and utterly contemporary.

Plus Robin and Peter dip into a verdant world, read the Imagist poem, Green, by D.H. Lawrence and, via Chroma by Derek Jarman, find ourselves on the shingle at Dungess by the nuclear power station. Robin talks breezily about Vanitas, the fleeting nature of life, and how she arranged the still life on the cover of her new book, The Mayday Diaries, skull and all...

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Chaos? We love it! Time to meet Isabelle Baafi and hear about her-hotly anticipated first full collection Chaotic Good just published by Faber. Among other things, it grapples with what it means to live a good and authentic life in a world full of challenges and unwanted expectations.

Plus Robin and Peter discuss the idea of délire - how language can at times deliriously overflow with meaning and burst the banks of logic. We'll glance again at Lewis Carroll, and reopen renowned UK poetry magazines Magma and The Rialto, and return with a gleaming pair of poems by Milena Williamson and Linda Ford. Chaos? Let's embrace it.

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Why should not old men be mad? Hear Peter Daniels, a pioneer of gay men's writing in the UK, brood on the emptiness of boxes, speculate on what those Cavalrymen are up to behind the locked doors, cope with Quixotic characters and, finally, bathe in the pure light of silent contemplation. All this from Old Men published by Salt in 2024.

Plus, we hear a little about Leland Bardwell, a perhaps neglected Irish poet and writer, and Timothy Gallagher, a writer of dramatic monologues. Peter and Robin also report back, hotfoot from the National Poetry Competition 2024 awards celebration.

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A gleam of love in hard times. Our guest Ellen Cranitch shares poems from her Bloodaxe collection  Crystal, a subtle, multifaceted work arising from the discovery that her partner was addicted to crystal meth. Expect beauty, flashes of resilience and the deft capture of moments that sustain a relationship through this extreme challenge.  

Robin and Peter have been rubbernecking at the recent Planetary Parade (we owe it to you dear listener because of our name) and use it as an excuse to open a celestial trove with dramatic lines from John Donne, from Odysseus Elytis transported from darkness on a highway of stars and from a heavenly (if passive-aggressive) W.B. Yeats. Then we sound a clarion note of Spring optimism from  Thomas Tranströmer. 

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Psssssssssst!  We've invited Ruth Padel to share work from her recent Chatto Poetry collection Girl. She talks about the power of girls, the mythologies woven around them and the responsibilities they must accept. She'll take us from Mary at the Annunciation (wearing a Primark T-shirt) to glimpsing a Serpent Queen from the 88 bus. 

Robin shares her long-held enthusiasm for 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem - also by Ruth Padel. And we celebrate  Siegfried Baber's spanking new pamphlet The Twice Turned Earth from Poetry Salzburg, discovering a poignant poem about Star Wars collectibles. 

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What's that knocking? It's the multi-talented Tishani Doshi, sharing her Bloodaxe collection A God at the Door. You'll hear supple, powerful poems fuelled by a controlled rage at the continuing oppression of women, blended with a playful optimism and dazzling ability to weave history, contemporary politics, and vivid imagery.

Plus Peter bites the AI bullet. Can Chat GPT be useful for poets? Or is AI the poet's nemesis? Robin emerges with a little colour in her cheeks, having read Bad Kid Catullus the 'filthsmith' Roman poet as re-imagined by innovative small press, Sidekick Books. 

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A revisit of Robin's interview with Caleb Parkin back in May 2022.

Read a description and  listen to the full episode here.

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Ah-hem. Stop thinking like that. Think like a poet! Dwell in negative capability and write in a way that reflects the sheer messiness of human cognition! That's better isn't it? We meet Dai George and talk about his book How to Think Like a Poet (Bloomsbury Continuum 2024) - where Dai creates a  new and generous canon of 24  poets from Homer, Sappho, to Frank O'Hara to Audre Lourde - and looks at their lives and preoccupations.

Now the festive period is upon us, Robin and Peter are in a whimsical mood. So you can expect things like steam trains, OuLiPo and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's spirited good riddance to the old year. Merry Christmas and Happy new year to all our listeners. See you in 2025... Thanks for listening! 

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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.

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. 

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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!

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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? 

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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!

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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.

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 Townsend

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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.

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?  

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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.

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 Poetry

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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.

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. 

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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.   

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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.

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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.

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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. 

Robin and Peter also make their way across Europe (simultaneously in both the 21st and the 19th Centuries) in the company of Janet Sutherland whose The Messenger House  (Shearsman Books) is a highly-ambitious  weaving of history, poetry and travelogue. At the border, we flag down Charlotte Gann to examine her  Cargo  -- a characteristically brilliant new pamphlet by  published by Mariscat Press.  And, tugging at the long roots of prosimetra, we find Boethius, Dante, David Jones and a 12th Century bloke called Hugh of Bologna.

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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.

Photo of Tamar Yoseloff by Stephen Wells.

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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.

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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.

Peter finds listening to a Christmas carol to be a slippery slope to goblin greengrocers and secretive Christina Rossetti, while Robin rouses the old possum and revisits Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot. And, as if that weren't enough, we neatly put a bow in the red ribbon of the show, with Congregation, a Christmas poem from Jeremy Page

Thanks so much for listening to Planet Poetry in 2023. Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone. Here's wishing you a Peaceful New Year!   

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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.

But there's one thing you can be 100% sure of: the usual banter from your pals Robin and Peter as they grasp another prickly poetic nettle.    

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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.

Meanwhile Peter has been reading I will Not Fold These Maps  by the Bidoon (stateless) poet Mona Kareem, whose refreshingly direct style adds a touch of surrealism to reflect the absurdity of not being a citizen of the country you were born in.  Then Robin (thanks to the marginalian) is enchanted by the astronomer poet Rebecca Elson and her collection A Responsibility to Awe from Carcanet Classic. Sampling a  poetry that places an awareness of the poet's own mortality against a backdrop of stars. 

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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?

Plus your podcast pals Robin Houghton and Peter Kenny strap on their boots and shin pads, and discuss everything from Spitfires to a Welsh shrine-like display for R. S. Thomas, they dip  into books by Denise Levertov, Glynn Maxwell and Han Kang,  sprinkle a few Neanderthals, a Stanza Anthology and Robin's great plunger into the mix, and... Yep! Planet Poetry is back.

Photo of Ian McMillan by Adrian Mealing

Books mentioned by Robin & Peter:
The Man Who Went into the West,  The Life of RS Thomas by Byron Rogers (Aurum 2006)
The Big Calls, Glyn Maxwell (Live Canon, 2023) The White Book, by Han Kang (Portobello Books 2018) and The Naked Neanderthal by Ludovic Slimak (Penguin 2023).

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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).

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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.  

Back with season four on October 12 2023

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

We'll hear Kate read from Cloud Soup and Moon Juice  (from the  Emma Press) and Rachel read her poems from the Big Amazing Poetry Book (Macmillan) We contrast this with their work in publications for grown-ups, such as Rachel's Disappointing Alice pamphlet from Happenstance, and Kate'sThe Rainbow Faults from Rialto's Bridge Pamphlets series.

We pause outside the head teacher's office where Robin and Peter, in trouble again for running in the corridor, are discussing the ways poetry reached them as children and they share two excellent children's poems from Zaro Weil and Brian Patten. 

 

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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'. 

Meanwhile Robin and Peter, invigorated by talking to third year creative writing students, reflect on the current complexity of the publishing landscape...  and wonder if the stigma that once attached itself to self-publishing is now obsolete. Plus we pop across the English Channel to discover the poetry of Guernsey-based poet Richard Fleming.  

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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.

Meanwhile Robin and Peter wonder aloud if writing a novel changes your approach to poetry, and ask why there aren't more poems about work and jobs. We see how this is done with a gorgeous poem from Factory Girls an intriguing collection from Japanese poet  Takako Arai. 

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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.

Peter and Robin also report back on the winning poems they heard at  the awards ceremony for the UK's National Poetry Competition 2022 -- and Robin is inspired by an essay from Forgive the Language by Katy Evans-Bush. 

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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.

And Robin has been enjoying Ian Duhig's masterful New and Selected Poems  learning en route what can be made to rhyme with Castor and Pollux, while Peter tarries in the twilight of Thomas Gray's  Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard -- 'mopeing owl' and all.  

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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.

And what do you do, as a poetry lover, when you just can't face reading another poem? Read something about poetry of course. Peter barges through Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry essays by the fine US poet Jane Hirshfield -- while Robin entertains 'The Hatred of Poetry' by Ben Lerner. 
    

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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.

Robin and Peter also discuss the T.S.Eliot Prize winner  Sonnets for Albert by Anthony Joseph,  published by Bloomsbury Poetry  and rediscover the magnificent faber collection Elegies by Douglas Dunn.  Finally, your hosts summon all their courage to share their fragile writerly hopes  for the new year. Happy New Year!

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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.

Amid the festive banter, you'll find your podcast pals discussing a Writer's Advent Calendar from Jo Bell  and seasonal favourites Snow by Louis McNeice and [little tree] by e. e. cummings. 

Thank you very much for listening to us in 2022. Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and an absolutely splendiferous New Year! See you in January.   

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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.

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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.

Meanwhile Robin continues the epic theme in St Lucia, by embarking on Omeros by Derek Walcott, and Peter, enervated after a house move  is re-enthused about poetry as a whole thanks to On Poetry: Reading, Writing & Working with Poems by Jackie Wills. 

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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.

Plus your poddy pals find out what Jacques Prévert was scribbling on the tablecloths, and catch up with the latest editions of The Frogmore Papers, and Prole.   

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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!

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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.   

And instead of hunching over their computer screens, Robin and Peter venture off to Beachy Head to gaze down at the English Channel and the chalk cliffs of the Sussex coast.  There, in the heatwave heat, they muse on some of the highlights of the second season and sip cold beer as a bazillion flying ants issue from the cracked earth.

Fiona's new book, Starlight Wood - Walking Back to the Romantic Countryside, is due out in September.

Photo of Fiona Sampson by Ekaterina Voskresenskaya. 

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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.

Next Peter lopes back  into Romanticism escaping into the opening lines of The Prelude by William Wordsworth while Robin examines the much pored over facsimile and transcript of that  familiar Modernist classic He Do The Police In Different Voices by T.S.Eliot.  

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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. 

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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.

Next... Time travel. We'll whisk you back to those passionate Victorians, with Robin sampling the obsessive melancholy of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s long poem In Memoriam A.H.H.  And Peter continues his quest into American poetry, and finds huge amounts to admire in the poem 'Prayer' from Jorie Graham’s vibrant collection Never published by Carcanet in 2002.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

Meanwhile  Peter absorbs the A4 format delights of  PN Review and The Rialto pausing to read a poem by Tim Craven while  Robin revisits Ian Duhig's spellbinding  poem The Lammas Hireling. 

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Welcome home! Now slip off your raincoat and settle down in the flickering firelight. 

Listening to Janet Sutherland will suggest summer snakes hissing in the hay, as you explore the rural upbringing that has shaped the quietly-magnificent world of her four Shearsman Books collections: Burning the Heartwood, Hangman’s Acre, Bone Monkey and Home Farm.

Meanwhile, your pals Robin and Peter begin 2022 eyeing a patriarchal statue in a beautiful poem by  Eavan Boland from her New Collected Poems from Carcanet . And devouring  C+nto and othered poems by Joelle Taylor to find it an elegiac, barnstorming celebration - and a just winner of the T.S. Eliot prize too. 

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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).   

Over a mince pie, Peter and Robin chat about the early life of one-time poet laureate John Masefield and his children's Christmas classic The Box of Delights - while Robin is so uplifted by Sasha Dugdale's new Carcanet collection Deformations she's invited her on the podcast for next year. Happy holidays everyone :-)

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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.

Plus you can expect a bit of Santa banter, pedantry and crows. We discuss Grief Is The Thing With Feathers by Max Porter (Faber) as well as the intriguing pamphlet  Articles of Twinship (Bare Fiction) by Peter Wallis.  

 

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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'.

But wait... Where's that self-promotional trumpet? The new website at planetpoetrypodcast.com is finally UP! (And if you could tell absolutely everyone about it, that really would be awfully decent of you.)  

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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.

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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!

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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... 

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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! 

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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. 

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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.

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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.  

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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.  

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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.   

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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.**

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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?

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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!

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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!  

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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...

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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. 

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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!

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