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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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Planet Poetry is a labour of love!
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