S2 Ep6: Episode 12: Daljit Nagra & Nisha Ramayya

We can’t believe we’ve come to the end of our second series [sad face]... In this extended final episode, Jack and Rachael have fun chatting with guests Daljit Nagra and Nisha Ramayya in the studio and there are audio postcards from Aria Aber and Jericho Brown, as well as poems from our two presenters.

Thank you to all our listeners – we hope you've enjoyed our second series. Remember to rate and review us and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of the podcast.

Show notes 

Studio guests

DALJIT NAGRA has published four poetry collections with Faber & Faber, including his most recent, British Museum. He has won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Collection, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award. His books have been nominated for the Costa Prize and twice for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and he has been selected as a New Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society. He is the inaugural Poet-in-Residence for Radio 4 & 4 Extra, and presents a weekly programme, Poetry Extra, on Radio 4 Extra. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was elected to its Council, and is a trustee of the Arvon Trust. He teaches at Brunel University, London.

NISHA RAMAYYA is a poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London. Her book, States of the Body Produced by Love, is published by Ignota (2019). She has published three pamphlets: Notes on Sanskrit (2015) and Correspondences (2016) with Oystercatcher Press, and In Me The Juncture (2019) with Sad Press. Threads, a creative-critical pamphlet co-authored with Sandeep Parmar and Bhanu Kapil, is published by clinic. She is a member of the 'Race & Poetry & Poetics in the UK' research group and the interdisciplinary practice-as-research group Generative Constraints.

Audio postcards featured in this episode

‘Reading Rilke in Berlin’, written and read by Aria Aber. The poem is taken from Aria Aber’s new book, Hard Damage (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). 

‘Stand’, written and read by Jericho Brown. Jericho Brown’s most recent collection, The Tradition, is out now from Picador and is a 2019 National Book Award for Poetry finalist.

About the presenters

RACHAEL ALLEN is the poetry editor at Granta, co-editor at the poetry press clinic and of online journal tender. A pamphlet of her poems was published as part of the Faber New Poets scheme, and her first collection, Kingdomland, was published by Faber in January 2019. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory award and New Writing North’s Andrew Waterhouse award.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, who also writes short fiction and non-fiction. A recipient of the Eric Gregory Award in 2007, he published his debut pamphlet in 2009 as part of the Faber New Poets series. His first collection Happiness was published by Faber in 2015 and was winner of the 2016 Somerset Maugham prize. He is a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths College and is currently writing a non-fiction book about poetry and uncertainty. Two pamphlets, Solo for Mascha Voice and Tenuous Rooms were published by Test Centre in 2018.

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber & Faber. Editing by Strathmore Publishing. Special thanks to Aria Aber, Jericho Brown, Daljit Nagra and Nisha Ramayya.