In this bonus episode of the Faber Poetry Podcast, Rachael and Jack welcome guests Edwina Attlee and Ange Mlinko to the studio to discuss archival encounters, the weather in Florida and the acceptable (or not) use of cliché. Audio postcards in this episode come from Michael Pedersen, Richard Scott and Diane Seuss.

EDWINA ATTLEE is a writer and lecturer. She has published two pamphlets, Roasting Baby (if a leaf falls press, 2016) and the cream (clinic, 2016) and her debut collection, a great shaking, was published by Tenement Press in 2023.

ANGE MLINKO has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Randall Jarrell Award for Criticism. She writes for the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. She lives and teaches in Florida. Foxglovewise is her latest collection.

'Lines on the Melodies in Men' written and read by Michael Pedersen, from his collection The Cat Prince & Other Poems, Corsair, 2023. His debut novel, Muckle Flugga is out in May 2025.

'Carnelian' written and read by Richard Scott. Taken from his recent second collection, That Broke into Shining Crystals (Faber, 2025).

‘Romantic Poet’ written and read by Diane Seuss, from her collection Modern Poetry (Fitzcarraldo, 2025). Her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection frank:sonnets is also out with Fitzcarraldo now.

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland and God Complex (both Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She is the poetry editor for Fitzcarraldo Editions and teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015) Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

Oh what a night. . . In this special episode, recorded live at the London Review Bookshop, Rachael and Jack are joined by Ishion Hutchinson and Oluwaseun Olayiwola, and we have an audio postcard from Charlotte Mew, delivered by the actress Emilia Clarke.  

Live guests

ISHION HUTCHINSON was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of the poetry collections Far District, winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, and House of Lords and Commons, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature, the Whiting Award, and a Donald Windham–Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize, among other honours. His new collection, School of Instructions, is shortlisted for the 2023 T. S. Eliot Prize.

OLUWASEUN OLAYIWOLA is a poet, critic, and choreographer living in London. His poems and criticism have been published in the Guardian, The Poetry Review, Oxford Poetry, the Telegraph, the TLS, and elsewhere. Seun was an inaugural member of the Southbank Poetry Collective. His debut collection, Strange Beach, is forthcoming in the US and UK. He recently began lecturing in the Kingston School of Art.

'The Trees are Down' written by Charlotte Mew and read by Emilia Clarke. The poem is included in Charlotte Mew's Selected Poetry and Prose (Faber).

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She was recently Anthony Burgess Fellow at the University of Manchester, is the poetry editor for Granta Publications, teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming from Faber in 2024.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015), Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber. This live episode was hosted by the LRB Bookshop. Special thanks to Emilia Clarke, John Clegg, Ishion Hutchinson, Gayle Lazda, Oluwaseun Olayiwola and Claire Williams. All three seasons of the podcast are available to stream on Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast listening platforms.

In this episode, Jack and Rachael talk couplets, nutlets and cats in poems, among many other things, with Lucy Mercer in the studio and Maggie Millner down the line from New York. Audio postcards are dispatched from Susannah Dickey, Oluwaseun Olayiwola and Rowan Ricardo Phillips.

Studio guests

LUCY MERCER'S first poetry collection Emblem (Prototype, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Choice. She has written for ArtReview, LA Review of Books and Poetry Review amongst others. She teaches creative writing at Goldsmiths and lives in London.

MAGGIE MILLNER was born and raised in rural upstate New York. She teaches writing at Yale and is a senior editor at the Yale Review. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review and Poetry. Couplets is her first book.

'Whenever you feel sad you enjoy the smooth refreshing taste of Diet Coke with Lemon' written and read by Susannah Dickey. Her collection ISDAL is shortlisted for the 2023 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and is out now. 

Oluwaseun Olayiwola reads from his poem 'Simulacrum'. Strange Beach, Oluwaseun Olayiwola's debut poetry collection will be published in 2024.

'El Pintor' written and read by Rowan Ricardo Phillips. His collections Living Weapon (2021) and Silver (forthcoming in April '24) are published by Faber.

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She was recently Anthony Burgess Fellow at the University of Manchester, is the poetry editor for Granta Publications, teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming from Faber in 2024.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015), Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber. Production and editing by Strathmore Publishing. Special thanks to Susannah Dickey, Lucy Mercer, Maggie Millner, Oluwaseun Olayiwola and Rowan Ricardo Phillips. All three seasons are available to stream on Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast listening platforms.

In this episode, Jack and Rachael are joined by award-winning poets Raymond Antrobus and Victoria Adukwei Bulley in the studio, where they consider the multiple meanings of the word 'quiet' and the gifts that make you feel seen. Audio postcards in this episode come from Declan Ryan, Holly Isemonger and Dawn Watson.

Studio guests

RAYMOND ANTROBUS is the author of three poetry titles: To Sweeten Bitter (Out-Spoken Press), The Perseverance (Penned in the Margins) and All The Names Given (Picador), as well as a forthcoming collection to be published by Picador. His work has won the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Ted Hughes Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and his poems have been added to GCSE syllabi. He is also the author of a children’s book, Can Bears Ski? (Walker Books), which became the first story to be broadcast on the BBC entirely in British Sign Language. Antrobus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020 and appointed an MBE in 2021. His debut work of non-fiction, An Investigation of Missing Sound, will be published by W&N in 2025.

VICTORIA ADUKWEI BULLEY is a poet, writer and artist. An alumna of the Barbican Young Poets and recipient of an Eric Gregory award, Victoria has held residencies in the US, Brazil and the V&A Museum in London. Her debut pamphlet, Girl B, was published by the African Poetry Book Fund in 2017. She is the recipient of a Techne scholarship for doctoral research at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her debut collection, Quiet, was published by Faber in 2022. It was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and won the Rathbones Folio Prize for Poetry and the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize.

'Mayfly', written and read by Declan Ryan. His debut collection, Crisis Actor, is out now (Faber, 2023).

'My Life as an Artist', written and read by Holly Isemonger, from her collection Greatest Hit (Vagabond Press, 2023).

An extract from ‘We, Ghost Tigers’, written and read by Dawn Watson, taken from her collection, We Play Here (Granta, 2023).

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She was recently Anthony Burgess Fellow at the University of Manchester, is the poetry editor for Granta Publications, teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming from Faber in 2024.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015), Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber. Production and editing by Strathmore Publishing. Special thanks to Raymond Antrobus, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Holly Isemonger, Declan Ryan and Dawn Watson. All three seasons are available to stream on Audioboom, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast listening platforms.

In this episode, Jack and Rachael discuss religion in poetry and the buried histories found within words with Camille Ralphs and Stephanie Sy-Quia. Audio postcards in this episode come from Eve Esfandiari-Denney, K Patrick and Hannah Sullivan. 

CAMILLE RALPHS (b.1992, Stoke-on-Trent) is a poet, critic and editor. Her poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines including the New York Review of Books, the Poetry Review, The Spectator and the London Magazine, and she has released three pamphlets: Malkin (The Emma Press, 2015), which was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award; uplifts & chains (If A Leaf Falls/Glyph Press, 2020); and Daydream College for Bards (Guillemot Press, forthcoming 2023). She writes critically for publications including the Telegraph, the Poetry Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books, produces a regular column for Poetry London and conducts an interview series for Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. She is Poetry Editor at the Times Literary Supplement. Her debut collection, After You Were, I Am, will be published by Faber in the summer of 2024.

 

STEPHANIE SY-QUIA was born in 1995 and is based in London. Her writing and criticism have been published in The Guardian, The White Review, The Boston Review, Granta, The TLS, and others. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and has twice been shortlisted for the FT Bodley Head Essay Prize. Her debut Amnion, published by Granta Poetry in 2021, received a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation; was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio and RSL Ondaatje Prizes; and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award.

'Joseph in Bird Mask Can Fly', written and read by Eve Esfandiari-Denney. Her pamphlet, My Bodies This Morning This Evening, is out now (Bad Betty Press, 2022).

'Splash', written and read by K Patrick. K Patrick's debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Granta.

An extract from ‘Was It For This’, written and read by Hannah Sullivan, taken from her most recent collection, Was It For This (Faber, 2023).

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She was recently Anthony Burgess Fellow at the University of Manchester, is the poetry editor for Granta Publications, teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming from Faber in 2024.

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015) Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

AND we’re back! In the first episode of the third season, Rachael and Jack welcome guests Anthony Anaxagorou and Nick Laird to the studio to discuss poetry writing, tea drinking and the ultimate battle: long poem vs short poem. Audio postcards in this episode come from Courtney Bush, Emily Berry and Anthony Joseph. 

ANTHONY ANAXAGOROU is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, spoken word artist, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. He has published several collections of poetry and short stories, and, in 2020, he published How to Write It, a practical guide, fusing writing tips and memoir, with Penguin Random House UK imprint #Merky Books. His most recent collection, Heritage Aesthetics (Granta) won the 2023 Ondaatje prize.

NICK LAIRD was born in County Tyrone in 1975. A poet, novelist, screenwriter, critic and former lawyer, his awards include the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and a Guggenheim fellowship. Feel Free (2018) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot prize and the Derek Walcott award. 'Up Late' the title poem from his latest collection Up Late (2023) won the Forward Prize for Best Poem. He is the Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queens’ University, Belfast.

‘Last Night Kyle’, written and read by Courtney Bush. Her new collection, I Love Information, is published in the UK in October (Milkweed Editions, 2023). 

Untitled poem, written and read by Emily Berry. Taken from her most recent collection, Unexhausted Time (Faber, 2022).

‘A Gap in Language’, written and read by Anthony Joseph. His T. S. Eliot Prize-winning collection Sonnets for Albert is out now (Bloomsbury, 2022).

RACHAEL ALLEN is the author of Kingdomland (Faber) and co-author of numerous artists’ books, including Nights of Poor Sleep (Prototype), Almost One, Say Again! (Slimvolume), Green at an Angle (Kestle Barton) and Material (Loose Joints). She was recently Anthony Burgess Fellow at the University of Manchester, is the poetry editor for Granta Publications, teaches Creative Writing at Queen Mary University, and her second collection of poems, God Complex, is forthcoming from Faber in 2024. 

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, writer and critic. He is author of Happiness (Faber 2015) Solo for Mascha Voice (Test Centre, 2018) and A Year in the New Life (Faber 2021). His debut work of non-fiction, NOT EVEN THIS, was published by Corsair in 2021. He has collaborated widely with composers and artists, and his work has been published internationally and in translation. He is senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College.

Rachael Allen and Jack Underwood are back for a third season, with an unmissable mix of studio guests, audio postcards from around the world and general poetry chat.

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.

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.

‘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.

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.

In the penultimate episode of the second series, Ilya Kaminsky and Sophie Robinson join Jack and Rachael in the studio to discuss, among other things, poems with ‘big dick energy’, the blurring of poetry with other literary forms and the tension between metaphor and the denial of metaphor. Audio postcards are from Daisy Lafarge, Anthony Anaxagorou and Hugo Williams. 

Listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss forthcoming episodes from the new season.

ILYA KAMINSKY was born in the former Soviet Union and is now an American citizen. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa, and co-editor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. Deaf Republic has been shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry. He has received a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. @ilya_poet

SOPHIE ROBINSON teaches Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and is the author of A and The Institute of Our Love in Disrepair. Her third collection, Rabbit, was published by Boiler House Press in 2018 and was chosen for the winter PBS Wild Card Choice. Recent work has appeared in n+1, The White Review, Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Ploughshares, BOMB Magazine, and Granta. @sophiepoetry

‘the willows on the common are still on fire’, written and read by Daisy Lafarge. Her pamphlets understudies for air and capriccio were published by Sad Press in 2017 and Spam Press in 2019 respectively. @janepaulette

‘Cause’, written and read by Anthony Anaxagorou. Anthony’s most recent collection, After the Formalities, is out now from Penned in the Margins and is shortlisted for the 2019 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. @Anthony1983

‘Tara Browne’, written and read by Hugo Williams. Lines Off, Hugo’s latest collection, was published by Faber in June 2019. 

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. @r_vallen

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. @underwood_jack

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber & Faber. Editing by Strathmore Publishing. Special thanks to Anthony Anaxagorou, Ilya Kaminskyi, Daisy Lafarge, Sophie Robinson and Hugo Williams. 

Two acclaimed award-winners join Rachael and Jack in the studio in our fourth episode of the second series: the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Rae Armantrout and the Scottish poet Don Paterson, twice winner of the T. S Eliot Prize and recipient of all three Forward Poetry Prizes, the Costa Poetry Prize and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. This episode also features audio postcards from Daljit Nagra, Sylvia Legris and Zeyar Lynn and ko ko thett.

See here for the full show notes, author bios and links. 

Listen to this episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss forthcoming episodes from the new season and (should you be so inclined) please rate and review us so that other poetry-lovers can discover the show. Thank you for listening!