The Poetry Exchange

In this episode of our podcast, you will hear Alice talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: ’Compost' by Dan Chelotti.

We are delighted to feature 'Compost' in this episode and would like to thank Dan Chelotti, Poetry Foundation and Greying Ghost Press for granting us permission to use the poem. Follow the links to read more of Dan's disarming, beautiful work.

Alice visited The Poetry Exchange at Greyfriars Chapel in Canterbury, as part of Wise Words Festival in September 2014. We’re very grateful to Wise Words for hosting The Poetry Exchange.

Alice is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Lesley Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

'Compost' is read by Michael Shaeffer.

*****

Compost

by Dan Chelotti

There is magic in decay.

A dance to be done

For the rotting, the maggot strewn

Piles of flesh which pile

Upon the dung-ridden earth

And the damp that gathers

And rusts and defiles.

There is a bit of this

In even the most zoetic soul — 

The dancing child’s arms

Flailing to an old ska song

Conduct the day-old flies

Away to whatever rank

Native is closest. Just today

I was walking along the river

With my daughter in my backpack

And I opened my email

On my phone and Duffie

Had sent me a poem

Called “Compost.” I read it

To my little girl and started

To explain before I was three

Words in Selma started

Yelling, Daddy, Daddy, snake!

In the path was a snake,

Belly up and still nerve-twitching

The ghost of some passing

Bicycle or horse. Pretty, Selma said.

Yes, I said. And underneath my yes

Another yes, the yes to my body,

Just beginning to show signs

Of slack, and another, my grasping

In the dark for affirming flesh

That in turn says yes, yes

Let’s rot together but not until

We’ve drained what sap

Is left in these trees.

And I wake in the morning

And think of the coroner

Calling to ask what color

My father’s eyes were,

And I asked, Why? Why can’t

You just look — and the coroner,

Matter-of-factly says, Decay.

Do you want some eggs, my love?

I have a new way of preparing them.

And look, look outside, I think this weather

Has the chance of holding.

Source: Poetry (June 2014)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our podcast, you will hear Tricia talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: ’Prayer' by Carol Ann Duffy.

We are delighted to feature 'Prayer' in this episode and would like to thank Carol Ann Duffy for granting us permission to use her poem in this way.

Tricia visited The Poetry Exchange at The National Poetry Library at Southbank Centre in August 2015. We’re very grateful to The National Poetry Library for hosting The Poetry Exchange. Do visit them for further inspiration!

Tricia is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Lesley Bennett and Alistair Snell.

'Prayer' is read by Fiona Lesley Bennett.

*****

Prayer

by Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

‘Prayer’ from Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy. Published by Picador, 2013. Copyright © Carol Ann Duffy. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W 11 1JN

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of our podcast, you will hear Margaret talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: ’Transfiguration' by Edwin Muir.

Margaret visited The Poetry Exchange at The Chapel in St Chad's College as part of Durham Book Festival in October 2015. We’re very grateful to Durham Book Festival, New Writing North and St Chad’s College for hosting The Poetry Exchange.

*****

Transfiguration

by Edwin Muir

So from the ground we felt that virtue branch

Through all our veins till we were whole, our wrists

As fresh and pure as water from a well,

Our hands made new to handle holy things,

The source of all our seeing rinsed and cleansed

Till earth and light and water entering there

Gave back to us the clear unfallen world.

We would have thrown our clothes away for lightness,

But that even they, though sour and travel stained,

Seemed, like our flesh, made of immortal substance,

And the soiled flax and wool lay light upon us

Like friendly wonders, flower and flock entwined

As in a morning field. Was it a vision?

Or did we see that day the unseeable

One glory of the everlasting world

Perpetually at work, though never seen

Since Eden locked the gate that’s everywhere

And nowhere? Was the change in us alone,

And the enormous earth still left forlorn,

An exile or a prisoner? Yet the world

We saw that day made this unreal, for all

Was in its place. The painted animals

Assembled there in gentle congregations,

Or sought apart their leafy oratories,

Or walked in peace, the wild and tame together,

As if, also for them, the day had come.

The shepherds’ hovels shone, for underneath

The soot we saw the stone clean at the heart

As on the starting-day. The refuse heaps

Were grained with that fine dust that made the world;

For he had said, ‘To the pure all things are pure.’

And when we went into the town, he with us,

The lurkers under doorways, murderers,

With rags tied round their feet for silence, came

Out of themselves to us and were with us,

And those who hide within the labyrinth

Of their own loneliness and greatness came,

And those entangled in their own devices,

The silent and the garrulous liars, all

Stepped out of their dungeons and were free.

Reality or vision, this we have seen.

If it had lasted but another moment

It might have held for ever! But the world

Rolled back into its place, and we are here,

And all that radiant kingdom lies forlorn,

As if it had never stirred; no human voice

Is heard among its meadows, but it speaks

To itself alone, alone it flowers and shines

And blossoms for itself while time runs on.

But he will come again, it’s said, though not

Unwanted and unsummoned; for all things,

Beasts of the field, and woods, and rocks, and seas,

And all mankind from end to end of the earth

Will call him with one voice. In our own time,

Some say, or at a time when time is ripe.

Then he will come, Christ the uncrucified,

Christ the discrucified, his death undone,

His agony unmade, his cross dismantled—

Glad to be so—and the tormented wood

Will cure its hurt and grow into a tree

In a green springing corner of young Eden,

And Judas damned take his long journey backward

From darkness into light and be a child

Beside his mother’s knee, and the betrayal

Be quite undone and never more be done.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, you will hear Mary Anne talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: ’I Am Like A Rose' by D. H. Lawrence.

Mary Anne visited The Poetry Exchange at Greyfriars Chapel in Canterbury as part of Wise Words Festival in September 2015. We’re very grateful to Wise Words Festival and Workers of Art for hosting and supporting The Poetry Exchange.

Mary Anne is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Fiona Lesley Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

'I Am Like A Rose' is read by Fiona Bennet.

*****

I Am Like A Rose

by D.H. Lawrence

I am myself at last; now I achieve

My very self, I, with the wonder mellow,

Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear

And single me, perfected from my fellow.

Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving

Its limpid sap to culmination has brought

Itself more sheer and naked out of the green

In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first full episode of our podcast, you will hear Dominic talking about the poem that has been a friend to him: ’The Second Coming’ by W. B. Yeats.

Dominic visited The Poetry Exchange at St Chad’s College Chapel, as part of Durham Book Festival in October 2015. We’re very grateful to Durham Book Festival, New Writing North and St Chad’s College for hosting The Poetry Exchange. Do visit them for further inspiration!

Dominic is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Fiona Lesley Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

'The Second Coming' is read by Michael Shaeffer

*****

The Second Coming

by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to The Poetry Exchange. We explore the idea of poems as friends.

Over the last two years, we've been inviting people to come and talk to us about a poem that has been a friend to them. Our new podcast will share these conversations, illuminating readers' insights into poems and the power of poetry in our everyday lives.

In each podcast episode you’ll be able to listen to one person talking about a poem and how it’s been a friend to them. You'll also hear a unique reading of their chosen poem, made especially for them.

For now, here's a taster - some extracts of the conversations we've been having with people about poems as friends and the place of poetry in their lives. We hope you enjoy it.

Click to subscribe to receive each new podcast episode as soon as it's released.

The Poetry Exchange is generously supported by Arts Council England, Workers of Art, New Writing North and Spread the Word.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.