59 episodes
Planet Poetry Robin Houghton & Peter Kenny
-
- Arts
-
-
5.0 • 6 Ratings
-
Love poetry? Join Robin and Peter and their guests as they read poems, chat about all things poetry and generally explore the bedazzling world of Planet Poetry. Since we started this podcast in 2020 we've interviewed dozens of poets and poetry editors, discussed all the thorny issues about the poetry world and delved into our favourite poetry past and present. We don't have sponsors and we don't interrupt the flow with ads, so if you like what we do, please buy us a coffee or two at buymeacoffee.com/planetpoetry to help keep the poddy going! Thanks!
-
Absence | Accidents - with Ali Lewis
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! -
Testaments | Troubles - with Roy McFarlane
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! -
Rapture | Reality - with Seán Hewitt
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! -
Archive - Inua Ellams from March 2021
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! -
Sorrow | Stored - with Paul Stephenson
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee! -
Darkness | Discovered - with Tamar Yoseloff
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.
Support the Show.
Planet Poetry is a labour of love, paid for out of our own pockets.
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support and Buy us a Coffee!
Customer Reviews
Spot On
I think you both have developed a wonderful format and a very enjoyable shared approach. The discussions really encourage me to explore the poets interviewed and the other work you introduce is consistently stimulating/ thought provoking. I am very grateful to have access to your work, many thanks.
Wonderful companion
Really enjoying this podcast - thank you 😊. As I am trying to learn as much about poetry as possible podcasts in this ilk are invaluable to introduce me to current poets as well as a wider introduction to those who have passed through the landscape.
Really wish poetry had been taught with this enthusiasm at my school. If it had been I don’t think I’d ever have left the form. Sadly it’s taken me 3 decades to rediscover poetry. Though that does mean I can immerse myself in poetry through technology that was not available before this time.