Episoder
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Ann an Hai-Àidh #6, thagh Niall O’Gallagher ‘Bisearta’ le Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa agus Alasdair C. MacIlleBhàin ‘Gur fad ’am thàmh mi gu tostach sàmhach’ le Dòmhnall Eachainn à Muile. Tha Niall agus Alasdair a’ leughadh nan dàin agus a’ bruidhinn orra, a’ lorg cheanglaichean eadar bàrdachd-cogaidh anns an fhicheadamh linn agus bàrdachd nam Fuadaichean anns an naoidheamh linn deug, agus a’ beachdachadh air an dàimh eadar snas an fhoirm agus cuspairean aognaidh.
For Hai-Àidh #6, Niall O’Gallagher chose George Campbell Hay’s ‘Bisearta’ and Alasdair C. Whyte went for ‘Gur fad ’am thàmh mi gu tostach sàmhach’ by Donald MacGillivray. They read the poem and discuss them, finding connections between twentieth-century war poetry and nineteenth-century poetry of the Clearances, and consider the tensions between formal beauty and disturbing subject matters.
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The much-loved and much-missed Scottish poet and translator, Alexander 'Sandy' Hutchison, is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast, presented by our regular host, Samuel Tongue.
David Kinloch said of his work: "Alexander Hutchison's poetry is elegant, flighty and absurdist by turns."
WN Herbert wrote: "Sandy Hutchison's poetry exhibits a gleeful acquisitive fascination with the language."
"A mentor, a bristling master, and a total original." - August Kleinzahler
The two poems by Alexander Hutchison discussed by the Friends of the SPL group in this podcast are Gavia Stellata and Everything.
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Manglende episoder?
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A short audio recording to accompany the Moon Tell Me Truth exhibition at the Scottish Poetry Library.
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Ann an Hai-Àidh #5, thagh Peigi Nic a’ Phiocair ‘Oidhche Na' Mo Chadal Dhomh’ le Nellie Ruadh, dàn a chaidh lorg o chionn ghoirid ann an tasglann, agus Joy Dunlop ‘An Roghainn’, aon de Dàin do Eimhir le Somhairle MacGill-Eain, mar òran le fonn ùr a rinn Dòmhnall Seathach. Tha Peigi agus Joy a’ leughadh, a’ seinn, agus a’ còmhradh air briathran blasta agus faireachdainnean làidir.
For Hai-Àidh #5, Peigi MacVicar picks Nellie Ruadh’s song ‘Oidhche Na' Mo Chadal Dhomh’, a recent archival discovery, and Joy Dunlop brings in ‘An Roghainn’, one of Sorley MacLean’s Dàin do Eimhir, set to music by Donald Shaw. Peigi and Joy read, sing, and chat about tasty words and strong feelings.
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Our usual host, Sam Tongue, is back from paternity leave, and between feeds and nappy changes has recorded the latest episode of our regular Nothing But The Poem poetry podcast. Special thank you to Aoife Lyall for stepping in and producing 3 wonderful NBTP podcasts on Jane Clarke, Eavan Boland and Billy Collins. Much appreciated.
Sam's subject this month is Nuala Watt, an emerging poet, whose work is increasingly recognised for its unique voice, formal daring, and fierce authenticity. Nuala Watt is partially sighted and her poems lead us through "the bureaucratic labyrinth of government assessment, the anxious joy of expecting a child and, with verve and originality, the realities of being a disabled parent".
Fellow poet Alyson Hallett commented: "Sit down before you read these poems. Open the window. Open the door. There's a bolt of pure electric coming for you."
My thoughts have arrived in the post.I don't know which ones.I think they may be cyclists in the dark.Sam took a deep dive into two poems from Nuala's debut poetry collection, The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish, which has just been published by Blue Diode Press. Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - got from these poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.
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Ann an Hai-Àidh #4, thagh Meg Bateman ‘Cànan na Deighe’ le Beth Frieden agus Joy Dunlop ‘Nam Aonar le Mo Smaointean’ le Iain MacLeòid. Tha Meg agus Joy a’ leughadh nan dàin agus a’ bruidhinn orra, a’ lorg ceanglaichean eadar dàn a tha cho ùr ’sa ghabhas agus òran tradaiseanta. Cuspairean a’ mhìos: dàimh ri àite, fuaimean fuachd, agus bàrdachd mar tùs-ùrachaidh agus mar chomas-iongantais.
In Hai-Àidh #4, Meg Bateman chose ‘Cànan na Deighe’ by Beth Frieden, and Joy Dunlop brought in ‘Nam Aonar le Mo Smaointean’ by John MacLeod. Meg and Joy read the poems and have a chat about them, bringing together a very recent Gaelic poem with a traditional song. This month’s themes include relationship to place, the sound of ice, and the power of poetry to make us look anew.
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Billy Collins, the former Poet Laureate of the United States, is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. With our regular podcast host Sam Tongue on paternity leave this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Lyall taking a deep dive into two of Billy Collins's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Billy Collins is one of the world's most loved poets, famed for his directness, accessibility and playful wit. Carol Ann Duffy could not have given higher praise when she said: "Billy Collins is one of my favourite poets in the world."
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune concurred: "Collins is absolutely charming. He deserves every rose he's flung these days... His poems are irresistible."
John Updike commented: "Billy Collins writes lovely poems... Limpid, gently and consistently startling, more serious that they seem, they describe all the worlds that are and were and some others beside."
The two poems discussed in this podcast are Introduction to Poetry from The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988) and Tension from Ballistics (2008).
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Eavan Boland is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. With our regular podcast host Sam Tongue on paternity leave this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Lyall taking an immersive look into two of Eavan Boland's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Eavan Boland is one of the central figures of modern Irish poetry, a poet who, according to her publishers Carcanet, "came to be known for her exquisite ability to weave myth, history, and the life of an ordinary woman into mesmerising poetry."
Elaine Feinstein, writing in the Poetry Review, said: "Boland is one of the finest and boldest poets of the last half-century."
Iain Crichton Smith wrote: "She has the equipment of the true poet, that is to say an image-making faculty, a true devoted eye and an ear for rhythm."
The two poems discussed in this podcast are The Poets from New Territory (Allen Figgis, 1967) and Moths from In A Time Of Violence (Carcanet, 1994).
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Jane Clarke is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. Jane Clarke is an Irish poet; the author of three poetry collections and an illustrated poetry booklet. Our regular podcast host Sam Tongue is currently on paternity leave and this edition has Bloodaxe poet Aoife Llyall taking an immersive look into three of Jane Clarke's poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Poet Carol Rumens wrote that Jane Clarke's poems were "rooted in the landscape of the west of Ireland and the farming context in which the lives of individual humans are played out asserts its own rhythm and narrative. In honouring this larger context Clarke enlarges her poetic field with an unobtrusive but important ecopoetic dimension."
The Irish novelist Anne Enright has praised her poems for their "clean, hard-earned simplicity and a lovely sense of line."
The three poems discussed in this podcast are When Winter Comes and Hers both from When The Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and Daily Bread from The River (Bloodaxe Books, 2015).
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On Wednesday 27th September 2023 the acclaimed Haitian poet Bertony Louis visited the Scottish Poetry Library to speak at an event where he discussed how his poetry intersects with the situation in Haiti.
Before the event Bertony recorded a podcast with the SPL; speaking about his life and work. Bertony spoke in French, which was translated simultaneously.
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Kei Miller is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. Kei Miller is a Forward Prize-winning Jamaican poet; a prolific author who has published 5 collections of poetry as well as many books of fiction and essays. Our regular podcast host Sam Tongue takes a deep dive into two of his poems, which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Jamaica Gleaner wrote: "Kei Miller is a poet who tells his stories in the haunting voices of Jamaica's underprivileged. His tales are stories that haven't been told; they call out from the pages to be heard by Caribbean readers and by the wider world."
In the PN Review, John Robert Lee wrote: "His prose – fiction and non-fiction – and his poetry... do not avoid the murky ‘corners’ of life in Jamaica, racism in the UK and wider world, personal encounters with religion and gender issues. In navigating ‘away from’ and through our contemporary world, he is redrawing our literary maps."
The two poems discussed in this podcast are Book of Genesis and Speaking in tongues. Both poems are from the 2007 collection, There Is an Anger that Moves, and both poems can also be found on the Poetry Archive website read by Kei Miller himself.
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Douglas Dunn is one of Scotland's most decorated poets - he has an OBE and a Queen's Medal - as well as one of Scotland's most loved poets. He is undoubtedly a major Scottish poet, editor and critic, whose Elegies (1985), is a moving account of his first wife’s death. The book became a critical and popular success.
His books – including 10 collections of poetry and 2 of short stories, and a translation of Racine’s Andromache – are consistently well reviewed in the national press, while his work has been the object of much academic attention and has been extensively translated (there are editions in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Slovak, Armenian and Japanese, at least).
In this Nothing But The Poem podcast, regular host Sam Tongue and the NBTP group appraise 3 of Dunn's poems. The poems span almost 5 decades: from Terry Street in 1969 to his most recent collection in 2017.
Dunn himself "once observed that much of poetry ‘depends on the exposure of the heart’, and that ‘there should be no holding back’. This is true of his work, for all its formal restraint. Whether writing of civic society, mourning, or domestic contentment, Douglas Dunn gives us heart-felt witness that ‘life is the best thing that can happen to us’." - Dr Jules Smith
The poems discussed in the podcast are TAY BRIDGE (1'10) and SECOND OPINION (7'35). Sam also reads a third poem THURSDAY (14'15). The texts for all 3 poems can be found here on the Scottish Poetry Library website.
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In a fair and equal world Toronto-based poet Dionne Brand would be widely recognised as one of the world’s foremost practitioners of poetry. Yet, in the UK for instance, her work hasn’t always been easy to find. Until, that is, Penguin Modern Classics published Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems in 2023.
Nomenclature is a huge tome – 623 pages long – which collects together 8 of Brand’s previous poetry collections as well as a new long form poem which gives the book its title. This is the essential Dionne Brand all gathered together in one place.
Brand’s work has a clear-eyed politically-conscious intensity, underpinning her textual experiments and linguistic adventures. She is immersed in the unflinching world of testimony, while looking forward, dreaming of a less hostile tomorrow. She chooses not to wrap human struggles or the human condition in a transcendent glow nor to swaddle in cotton wool memories. In Inventory she writes:
I have nothing soothing to tell you
that’s not my job
my job is to revise and revise this bristling list
hourly.
In Lux magazine Brand was described by Sarah Matthews as “resolutely Black, decolonial, internationalist, lesbian, and staunchly, unswervingly leftist. Both her poetry and her activism take that fateful youthful epiphany of realizing the tear in the world, then make it a portal of observance and imagining.”
Dionne Brand was the subject of the SPL’s Nothing But The Poem podcast. Our usual host, Sam Tongue, took a deep dive into two of her poems. Both can be found online at the Griffin Poetry Prize website.
THIRSTY
FROM VERSO 4
Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - got from the two poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.
(KW)
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Welsh poet Jonathan Edwards is the latest subject of the Nothing But The Poem podcast. As always our host Sam Tongue takes a deep dive into two of his poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Jonathan Edwards is a multi-award winning poet - including the Costa Book Prize for Poetry (2014) and the Troubadour Poetry Prize in 2022 - and has had two full collections of poetry published: My Family And Other Superheroes (2014) and Gen (2018).
Edwards' poems draw lovingly from pop culture and sport, as well as from his family, community and a sense of Welshness. His first collection was described by critic Alice Vincent as having poems "in which celebrities and fictional characters such as Sophia Loren and Evel Knievel collide with reflections on the social architecture of working class Welsh valleys."
The two poems discussed in this podcast are Evel Knievel Jumps Over My Family and Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque, June 1965
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American poet Ross Gay is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of his poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Ross Gay was born in Ohio and now teaches at Indiana University. He's the author of 4 poetry collections and 3 books of essays. His specialist subject is joy! On his website intro it states:
Ross Gay is interested in joy.
Ross Gay wants to understand joy.
Ross Gay is curious about joy.
Ross Gay studies joy.
Something like that.
Robert Eric Shoemaker wrote on the Poetry Foundation website:
Poet Ross Gay takes his office hours in his garden and is often unreachable by technology. Imagine the delight (little delights, perhaps, in his Book of Delights) of being unreachable among the dirt and the plants, or of smiling in discussion with a friend, student, or colleague among the smell of apples trees. Go try it!
The two poems discussed in this podcast are Poem To My Child If Ever You Should Be and Sorrow Is Not My Name
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As part of our Poetry Unravelled project, we invited three poets – Victoria McNulty, Beth McDonough and Craig Houston - to join project-lead Julie McNeil for conversation and readings around their experiences of dyslexia and neurodiversity. We discussed how they first engaged with poetry and the challenges raised by educational settings, especially around identifying a lack of dyslexia-friendly poetry resources available for individuals and schools. We also recorded poems reflecting on these themes, showcasing the transformative power of poetry, whether listening, reading, or creating. The resources from the project will be made available on our website soon. For more information, please contact project and learning coordinator Samuel Tongue.
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Anthony Vahni Capildeo is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of their poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
A Trinidadian-Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction, Anthony Vahni Capildeo has published eight books and eight pamphlets, including Measures of Expatriation which won the 2016 Forward Prize. Their most recent poetry collection is Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021).
Beth Cochrane in The Skinny said of the collection: ‘ 'Vahni Capildeo has always been a remarkable and singular poet, and Like a Tree, Walking is yet another triumph of their warm wit, direct vision, and almost spiritual connection to the page....The collection is welcoming, disarming, and - as its blurb commands - 'defined by how it writes about love.' The poetry within is to be celebrated, read, and reread by poets and not-poets alike.'’
Jen Campbell wrote: 'I would follow Vahni Capildeo's poetry to the ends of the Earth, I just think that they're amazing...I love this book very much.'
High praise indeed!
The two poems discussed in this podcast are To London and Migraine Improv.
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Helen Mort is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of Helen Mort’s poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Helen Mort is an award winning poet from Sheffield who's had 3 collections of poetry published. Her most recent collection, The Illustrated Woman (2022), was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize.
The book's blurb at HelenMort.com reads: 'The Illustrated Woman is a tender and incisive collection about what it means to live in a female body - from the joys and struggles of new motherhood to the trauma of deepfakes.
Andrew McMillan said of the collection: 'These are poems that will leave their indelible mark'
Kate Kellaway, reviewing the book in the Guardian, wrote: The Illustrated Woman explores tattoos through history and, lucid though these poems are, you need to reread them often to acquire the deepest sense of what is being said. Mort presents tattoos variously: as painful and cherished keepsakes, exposure and concealment combined, flirtations with indelibility.
The two poems discussed in this podcast – Ablation and The Tattooed Lady – can be found in No Map Could Show Them (Chatto) and The Illustrated Woman (Penguin).
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Am mìos-sa tha Meg Bateman agus Pàdraig MacAoidh a’ còmhradh air ‘Aig an Fhaing’ le Anna Frater agus ‘Duan an Dannsair’ le Flòraidh NicPhàil. Tha an còmhradh a’ dannsa eadar cuspairean a’ leithid dùthchas, treubhan, mic-talla, bròn agus cruthachadh. Stiall oirbh agus èistibh.
Mo chasan dubh, mo chasan dubh..
This month Meg Bateman and Peter Mackay chat about 'At the Fank' by Anne Frater and 'Duan an Dannsair' by Flora MacPhail. The conversation dances between topics like dùthchas, tribes, echoes, sadness and creativity. Have a go and listen.
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Jorie Graham is the subject of the new Nothing But The Poem podcast. The SPL’s regular podcast host, Sam Tongue, takes a deep dive into two of Jorie Graham’s poems which were discussed at the online monthly meet-up of the Nothing But The Poem group.
Jorie Graham and her poetry are difficult to classify. To get some idea of her thinking and poetic process this illuminating interview should help: Jorie Graham Takes The Long View
Among many things she’s an eco-poet of tremendous power. She’s the author of 15 poetry collections, four of which were collected together as [To] The Last [Be] Human. The poems in these 4 books address the ongoing tragedy of humanity’s destruction of the natural world and, potentially, our own species.
The two poems discussed in this podcast – Full Fathom and Prayer – can both be found in [To] The Last [Be] Humananthology or can be read here on the Poetry Foundation website.
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