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In this special episode, we honour the poetry legend that is Benjamin Zephaniah by sharing this conversation with poet Roy McFarlane, talking about 'Dis Poetry' and the hugely influential part Benjamin Zephaniah has played in Roy's life.

Roy McFarlane is a poet born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage. He has held the roles of Birmingham’s Poet Laureate, Starbucks’ Poet in Residence and Birmingham & Midland Institute’s Poet in Residence. He has three collections published by Nine Arches Press: Beginning With Your Last Breath (2016); The Healing Next Time (2018), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, and Living By Troubled Waters (2022). In 2023, Roy McFarlane was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. He was included in The Times’ list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008 and was probably the most televised poet of his generation in the UK. His down-to-earth mission to take poetry wherever he could – and especially to those who would not normally read it – led him to being known to millions as ‘The People’s Poet. Zephaniah was revolutionary in bringing his Jamaican voice, speech and heritage into poetry – both on the page and in performance – opening up doors for many poets to come. A lifelong activist, Zephaniah’s wrote about his lived experiences of incarceration and racism, and was a radical voice for freedom, equality and humanity around the world.  

The recording of 'Dis Poetry', performed by Benjamin Zephaniah, is taken from To Do Wid Me - a 2013 film portrait of Benjamin Zephaniah by Pamela Robertson-Pearce drawing on both live performances and informal interviews. The film and accompanying Selected Poems are available from Bloodaxe Books: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/to-do-wid-me-dvd-book--1038.

Roy McFarlane's extraordinary poem 'In the city of a hundred tongues' is taken from his collection The Healing Next Time, published by Nine Arches Press in 2018.

Roy McFarlane is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

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Dis Poetry

by Benjamin Zephaniah

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops

De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots

Dis poetry is designed fe rantin

Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,

Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep

Preaching follow me

Like yu is blind sheep,

Dis poetry is not Party Political

Not designed fe dose who are critical.

Dis poetry is wid me when I gu to me bed

It gets into me dreadlocks

It lingers around me head

Dis poetry goes wid me as I pedal me bike

I've tried Shakespeare, respect due dere

But did is de stuff I like.

Read the full poem on our website.

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In this very special episode of The Poetry Exchange podcast, journalist, writer and editor Simon Crompton talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'The Thrush' by Edward Thomas.

This episode is dedicated to a dear friend of Simon and of The Poetry Exchange - the extraordinary Martin Heaney - who sadly died at the end of 2023. Martin has been a touchstone of The Poetry Exchange from the outset, bringing his deep passion for poetry and his belief in the central importance of friendship to our lives to our work over the years. We are eternally grateful to Martin for being such a beautiful, inspirational and joyful friend.

Simon Crompton is a journalist, writer, editor and communications consultant specialising in health and social affairs. He wrote for The Times for over 20 years, also working as the health editor of the newspaper’s Body&Soul section. He has edited many publications in the fields of health and social work and contributes regularly to the international Cancer World magazine. Throughout his career he has provided consultancy to a wide range of voluntary and statutory organisations working for patient and public welfare. Having written three non-fiction books, he is now focusing on writing fiction.

Martin Heaney's podcast is Chatty Guy Talks Cancer Care and Hope (you can hear Martin in conversation with Simon Crompton on one of the early episodes).

You can listen to Martin talk about the poem that's been a friend to him - The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats - in this episode of The Poetry Exchange.

At the end of the episode, we share a recording of Martin reading 'Sometimes all it takes' by Gill McEvoy. We are very grateful to Gill for allowing us to share this beautiful poem. Gill McEvoy's Selected Poems is published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in February 2024.

Thank you to Simon for such a beautiful converastion, to Martin for all the inspiration, and to all of you for listening.

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The Thrush

by Edward Thomas

When Winter's ahead,

What can you read in November

That you read in April

When Winter's dead?

I hear the thrush, and I see

Him alone at the end of the lane

Near the bare poplar's tip,

Singing continuously.

Is it more that you know

Than that, even as in April,

So in November,

Winter is gone that must go?

Or is all your lore

Not to call November November,

And April April,

And Winter Winter—no more?

But I know the months all,

And their sweet names, April,

May and June and October,

As you call and call

I must remember

What died into April

And consider what will be born

Of a fair November;

And April I love for what

It was born of, and November

For what it will die in,

What they are and what they are not,

While you love what is kind,

What you can sing in

And love and forget in

All that's ahead and behind.

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In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we listen back to one of our previous conversations - with the extraordinary actor Andrew Scott, talking about the poem that's been a friend to him: 'Love (III)' by George Herbert.

As 2023 draws to a close, this is the poem and conversation we want to lift up for you all...

We are incredibly grateful to Andrew Scott for joining us back in 2018 to talk so openly and eloquently about this poem and the part it has played in his life.

Thank you for all your support and for sharing a love of poetry with us during 2023.

With love from Fiona, Michael and all of us at The Poetry Exchange

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Love (III)

by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’

Love said, ‘You shall be he.’

‘I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.’

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.’

‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’

‘My dear, then I will serve.’

‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat:’

So I did sit and eat.

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In this episode, poet, playwright, teacher and activist Jacqueline Saphra talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Ceasefire' by Michael Longley.

We are so grateful to Jacqueline for joining us at this time, to talk about this beautiful poem and the part it has played in her life.

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright, teacher and activist. She is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye) was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing But Naked Women (The Emma Press) won Best Collaborative Work at The Sabotage Awards. Recent collections from Nine Arches Press are All My Mad Mothers (shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize), Dad, Remember You are Dead and One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and teaches at The Poetry School. Her latest collection, Velvel's Violin (Nine Arches Press, 2023) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Jacqueline is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

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Ceasefire

by Michael Longley

I

Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears

Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king

Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and

Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.

II

Taking Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles

Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,

Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry

Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.

III

When they had eaten together, it pleased them both

To stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,

Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still

And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:

IV

‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done

And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’

From 'Ghost Orchid' (Jonathan Cape, 1995), copyright © Michael Longley

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In this episode, poet, writer and doctor Gita Ralleigh talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'The Daughter' by Carmen Giménez.

We're so grateful to Gita for sharing such an intimate, beautiful conversation with us, and to Carmen Giménez and The University of Arizona Press for allowing us to bring the poem to you in this way.

Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. She teaches creative writing to science undergraduates at Imperial College and has an MA in Creative Writing and an MSc in Medical Humanities. Her poetry books are A Terrible Thing (Bad Betty Press, 2020) and Siren (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). Her debut children’s novel The Destiny Of Minou Moonshine was published by Zephyr/Head of Zeus in July 2023. You can find her on Twitter as @storyvilled and on Instagram as @gita_ralleigh

'The Daughter' can be found in Carmen Giménez' collection Milk and Filth, published by University of Arizona Press, 2013. You can find out more about Carmen Giménez and her work at www.carmengimenez.net.

We are thrilled to announce our first anthology will be pubished by Quercus Editions on 9th May 2024!

Poems as Friends: The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology will bring together a beautiful selection of poems that readers have shared with us at The Poetry Exchange over the last 10 years. The poems will be presented alongside readers' stories of connection, revealing how the poems have acted as friends to them and have played a part in their lives. You can find out more about our our anthology and pre-order your copy here.

We are so grateful to all our listeners, followers and contributors for being part of The Poetry Exchange so far, and for celebrating and sharing poems as friends with us in so many beautiful ways.

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The Daughter

by Carmen Giménez

We said she was a negative image of me because of her lightness.

She's light and also passage, the glory in my cortex.

Daughter, where did you get all that goddess?

Her eyes are Neruda's two dark pools at twilight.

Sometimes she's a stranger in my home because I hadn't imagined her.

Who will her daughter be?

She and I are the gradual ebb of my mother's darkness.

I unfurl the ribbon of her life, and it's a smooth long hallway, doors flung open.

Her surface is a deflection is why.

Harm on her, harm on us all.

Inside her, my grit and timbre, my reckless.

'The Daughter' from Milk & Filth. Copyright © 2013 by Carmen Gimenez Smith. Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.

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In this episode, poet and criminal barrister Tim Kiely talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Timothy Winters' by Charles Causley.

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.

We are so grateful to Tim for joining us and sharing his story of connection with Causely's powerful poem.

Tim Kiely is a criminal barrister and poet based in London. His work has appeared in 'South Bank Poetry', 'Under the Radar', 'Atrium', 'Ink, Sweat & Tears' and 'Magma'. He is the author of three poetry pamphlets, 'Hymn to the Smoke' (from Indigo Dreams), 'Plaque for the Unknown Socialist' (from Back Room Poetry) and 'No Other Life' (from Vole Books), all of which are available from timkielybooks.bigcartel.com. He can be followed @timkiely1 on Instagram and Twitter.

You can find 'Timothy Winters' in Charles Causley's 'Collected Poems' 1951-2000 (Picador, 2000).

Fiona and Michael mention this year's Forward Prizes for Poetry - find out more about all the shortlisted poets and the prize ceremony, taking place at Leeds Playhouse on 16th October 2023.

Is there a poem that has been a friend to YOU? Tell us about it and read some of the extraordinary nominations of poems as friends we have received so far... www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/nominate.

Tim Kiely is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Al Snell and Andrea Witzke Slot.

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Timothy Winters

by Charles Causley

Timothy Winters comes to school

With eyes as wide as a football-pool,

Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:

A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

His belly is white, his neck is dark,

And his hair is an exclamation-mark.

His clothes are enough to scare a crow

And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won't hear a word

And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,

He licks the pattern off his plate

And he's not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet

And he lives in a house on Suez Street,

He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor

And they say there aren't boys like him anymore.

Old Man Winters likes his beer

And his missus ran off with a bombardier,

Grandma sits in the grate with a gin

And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.

The welfare Worker lies awake

But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,

So Timothy Winters drinks his cup

And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves

for children less fortunate than ourselves,

And the loudest response in the room is when

Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"

So come one angel, come on ten

Timothy Winters says "Amen

Amen amen amen amen."

Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen

From 'Collected Poems 1951-2000' (Picador, 2000), © Charles Causley 2000, used by permission of the author’s Estate.

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In this episode, poet Michael Mark joins us to talk about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Little Champion' by Tony Hoagland.

Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, which won the 2022 Rattle Chapbook prize. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Copper Nickel, The New York Times, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Southern Review, The Sun, 32 Poems, and The Poetry Foundation's American Life in Poetry. His two books of stories are Toba and At the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum). michaeljmark.com 

We are hugely grateful to Michael for visiting The Poetry Exchange and talking so openly and eloquently about his connection with 'Little Champion.'

You can find 'Little Champion' in Tony Hogland's collection 'Application for Release from the Dream', published by Graywolf Press (2015). Many thanks to Grawywolf Press for their support.

Michael Mark is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Andrea Witzke Slot and John Prebble.

The 'gift' reading of 'Little Champion' is by John Prebble.

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Little Champion

by Tony Hoagland

When I get hopeless about human life,

which quite frankly is far too difficult for me,

I like to remember that in the desert there is

a little butterfly that lives by drinking urine.

And when I have to take the bus to work on Saturday,

or spend an hour opening the mail,

deciding what to keep and what to throw away,

one piece at a time,

I think of the butterfly following its animal around

through the morning and the night,

fluttering, weaving sideways through

the cactus and the rocks.

And when I have to meet all Tuesday afternoon

with the committee to discuss new bylaws,

or listen to the dinner guest explain his recipe for German beer,

or hear the scholar tell, again,

about her campaign to destroy, once and for all,

the cult of heteronormativity,

I think of that tough little champion

with orange and black markings on its wings,

resting in the shade beneath a ledge of rock

while its animal sleeps nearby;

and I see how the droplets hang and gleam among

the thorns and drab green leaves of desert plants

and how the butterfly alights and drinks from them

deeply, with a stillness of utter concentration.

Published in The Sun Magazine, November 2014 and in the collection, 'Application for Release from the Dream' (Graywolf Press, 2015).

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In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we are thrilled to be joined by the poetry tour-de-force that is Salena Godden, to hear about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'You Don't Know What Love' Is by Kim Addonizio.

Salena spoke with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer about this elusive, gorgeous poem and the part it has played in her life.

Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights for Mrs Death Misses Death have been optioned by Idris Elba’s production company Green Door Pictures.

A hardback edition of Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance was published by Rough Trade Books in February 2023. She is currently working on a memoir and a poetry collection which are both due for publication in May 2024, plus an eagerly anticipated second novel set in the Mrs Death Misses Death universe due for publication in spring 2025.

Salena's essay Shade was published in groundbreaking anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound 2016). Godden has had several volumes of poetry published including Under The Pier (Nasty Little Press 2011) Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014 (Burning Eye Books 2014), plus also a childhood memoir, Springfield Road (Unbound 2014).

After hearing this episode, you will also want to seek out and read as much as you can of Kim Addonizio's work.

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You Don't Know What Love Is

by Kim Addonizio

You don't know what love is

but you know how to raise it in me

like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to

wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.

How to start clean. This love even sits up

and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.

Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want

to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive

to some cinderblock shithole in the desert

where she can drink and get sick and then

dance in nothing but her underwear. You know

where she's headed, you know she'll wake up

with an ache she can't locate and no money

and a terrible thirst. So to hell

with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt

and your tongue down my throat

like an oxygen tube. Cover me

in black plastic. Let the mourners through.

From 'What Is This Thing Called Love' by Kim Addonizio (2005, W.W. Norton & Co.)

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In this episode, poet, radio host and editor Lois P. Jones talks about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'What Survives' by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin Jr.

Lois P. Jones is a luminous poet, radio host and editor, living in California. She won the 2023 Alpine Fellowship which this year takes place in Fjällnäs, Sweden. She was a finalist in the annual Mslexia Poetry Competition judged by Helen Mort and will be published in Spring 2023. In 2022 her work was a finalist for both the Best Spiritual Literature Award in Poetry from Orison Books and the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Lois' first collection, 'Night Ladder' was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2017 and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award and the Lascaux Poetry Prize for a poetry collection. Since 2007, has hosted KPFK’s Poets Café, co-produced the Moonday Poetry Series and acted as poetry editor for Pushcart and Utne prize-winning Kyoto Journal.

'What Survives' was published in The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr, by Graywolf Press in 2002.

Lois P. Jones is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

The 'gift' reading of 'What Survives' is by Fiona and Michael.

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What Survives

by Rainer Maria Rilke

translated by A. Poulin, Jr.

Who says that all must vanish?

Who knows, perhaps the flight

of the bird you wound remains,

and perhaps flowers survive

our caresses, in their ground.

It isn't the gesture that lasts,

but it dresses you again in gold

armor--from breast to knees—

and the battle was so pure

may an Angel wear it after you.

From The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. (Graywolf Press, 2002).

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In this latest episode, writer Rosie Garland talks to us about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'My Dark Horses' by Jodie Hollander.

Writer and singer with post-punk band The March Violets, Rosie Garland has a passion for language nurtured by public libraries. Her poetry collection ‘What Girls do the Dark’ (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021, & her novel The Night Brother was described by The Times as “a delight...with shades of Angela Carter.” Val McDermid has named her one of the UK’s most compelling LGBT writers. http://www.rosiegarland.com

Jodie Hollander, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was raised in a family of classical musicians. She studied poetry in England, and her poems have appeared in journals such as The Poetry Review, The Yale Review and The Dark Horse. Her debut full-length collection, My Dark Horses, was published with Liverpool University Press (Pavilion Poetry) in 2017. Her second collection, Nocturne, was published with Liverpool & Oxford University Press in the spring of 2023. https://www.jodiehollander.com

Rosie Garland is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange team members Sally Anglesea and John Prebble.

In the introduction, Fiona also mentions Glyn Maxwell's extraordinary new collection, 'The Big Calls', which was published by Live Canon in March 2023.

We hope you enjoy being with all the poems featured in this episode!

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My Dark Horses

by Jodie Hollander

If only I were more like my dark horses,

I wouldn’t have to worry all the time

that I was running too little and resting too much.

I’d spend my hours grazing in the sunlight,

taking long naps in the vast pastures.

And when it was time to move along I’d know;

I’d spend some time with all those that I’d loved,

then disappear into a gathering of trees.

If only I were more like my dark horses,

I wouldn’t be so frightened of the storms;

instead, when the clouds began to gather and fill

I’d make my way calmly to the shed,

and stand close to all the other horses.

Together, we’d let the rain fall round us,

knowing as darkness passes overhead

that above all, this is the time to be still.

From 'My Dark Horses' by Jodie Hollander, Liverpool University Press, 2017.

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