The Poetry Exchange

In our latest episode, acclaimed poet, playwright and librettist Glyn Maxwell talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'Acquainted with the Night' by Robert Frost.

Glyn is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

Glyn Maxwell's volumes of poetry include The Breakage, Hide Now, Pluto, and How The Hell Are You, all of which were shortlisted for either the Forward or T. S. Eliot Prizes, and The Nerve, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His latest collection is The Big Calls, published in 2023 by Live Canon.

On Poetry, a guidebook for the general reader, was published by Oberon in 2012. The Spectator called it ‘a modern classic’ and The Guardian’s Adam Newey described it as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read.’ Drinks With Dead Poets, which is both an expansion of On Poetry and a novel in itself, was published by Oberon in September 2016.

Many of Maxwell’s plays have been staged in London and New York, including Liberty at Shakespeare’s Globe, and at the Almeida, Arcola, RADA and Southwark Playhouse.

*********

Acquainted with the Night

by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1964, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine. Copyright 1936, 1942 © 1956 by Robert Frost. Copyright 1923, 1928, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Co.

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

In this episode of our podcast, Alex Pritchard-Jones talks about the poem that has been a friend to him: Poem in October by Dylan Thomas.

Alex spoke with us online during a day of Exchanges at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. He is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.

Poem in October is read by Roy McFarlane.

*********

Poem In October

by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood

And the mussel pooled and the heron

Priested shore

The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall

Myself to set foot

That second

In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name

Above the farms and the white horses

And I rose

In rainy autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road

Over the border

And the gates

Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling

Blackbirds and the sun of October

Summery

On the hill's shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened

To the rain wringing

Wind blow cold

In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail

With its horns through mist and the castle

Brown as owls

But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.

There could I marvel

My birthday

Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country

And down the other air and the blue altered sky

Streamed again a wonder of summer

With apples

Pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother

Through the parables

Of sun light

And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.

These were the woods the river and sea

Where a boy

In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

And the mystery

Sang alive

Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday

Away but the weather turned around. And the true

Joy of the long dead child sang burning

In the sun.

It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

O may my heart's truth

Still be sung

On this high hill in a year's turning.

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

In this special, feature-length episode, we bring you our live event at SkyLines Festival of Poetry & Spoken Word in Coventry, which took place in July 2022.

Renowned poets Roz Goddard and Rishi Dastidar are in converation with hosts Michael Shaeffer and Roy McFarlane about the poems that have been friends to them, alongside live readings from The Poetry Exchange archive.

Roz talks about 'Pulmonary Tuberculosis' by Katherine Mansfield; Rishi talks about 'Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream' by Amy Key.

We are hugely greatful to Roz and Rishi for joining us for this event and for sharing the poems that have been friends to them so openly and beautifully. Our thanks also to the Belgrade Theatre and SkyLines Festival team, especially Jane Commane for inviting us to be part of the programme and Jason Sylvester and Debbie Harlow for their support on the day.

Thank you to Amy Key for allowing us to share her brilliant poem - you can find it in Amy's collection 'Isn't Forever' from Bloodaxe Books.

Roy also reads 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald. Many thanks to Alice Oswald and United Agents for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. 'A Short Story of Falling' can be found in the collection 'Falling Awake' (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016.

*********

Pulmonary Tuberculosis

by Katherine Mansfield

The man in the room next to mine has the same complaint as I. When I

wake in the night I hear him turning. And then he coughs. And I cough. And after a silence I cough. And he coughs again. This goes on for a long time. Until I feel we are like two roosters calling to each other at false dawn. From far-away hidden farms.

Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream

by Amy Key

each night I count ghostlets of how my body was

wanted / behind with deadheading / rose hips have

come / behind with actions that count only / when

the timing is right / I took out a contract / it was

imprudent in value / behind with asepsis / hello

microbes of my body / we sleep together / hello

cats / I make my bed daily / of the three types of

hair on the sheets / only one is human / I count the

bedrooms / I never had sex in / but there were cars

/ wild woods / blackfly has got to all the

nasturtiums / you cannot dig up a grapevine / and

expect shelter to come / I am touched by your letter

/ writes a friend / you prevaricate desire / says

message / all this fucking / with no hands on me

Copyright Amy Key. From 'Isn't Forever' by Amy Key (Bloodaxe Books, 2018).

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

In this episode, poet Sue Brown talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her - 'Truth' by Jean 'Binta' Breeze.

​

Sue joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute and is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.

Sue Brown writes from the heart and the soul. Her words pull from the dialect of her local community, from the long toned melodic speech of preachers and Maya Angelou, from mantras and incantations, from jazz. In her poetry, a lifetime in the making, she is a fighter and a lover, by turns rising up against the oppression that has dominated her peoples’ history, and rising skywards on the warm air of her compassion and her capacity for love. These poems move with a beat that speaks to hearts everywhere. They pulse with life, feeling like they could either be spoken or sung. Feel their rhythm. Feel their profound sensibility. And as Roy McFarlane says in his exuberant introduction to this book – ‘Let Rhythm Chant take a hold of you.’

'Truth' is taken from Jean Binta Breeze's 'Third World Girl - Selected Poems', published by Bloodaxe Books.

*********

Truth

by Jean 'Binta' Breeze

some years after

when the laughter came again

she grew her hair in locks around her head

and lived

simply

without even a bed but she

she had stories that woman

she had stories to tell

and children who listened well

and she

she hid nothing

made no excuses for self

just let

truth give her voice to the wind

and she would sing sometimes sing and

ask a little more time

for memory to swell their heads

the children gathered around her

the more they asked

the more words she was sent

words that crossed all ages

served no laws

words that questioned all they had been taught

so they put her away

one day

she must be mad

the adults say

corrupting young minds

it's obvious depraved

she grew silent then

her laughter grew thin

then left with the wind

but the children grew up and remembered

one woman who didn't lie

one woman who didn't hide

now they count the hypocrites among them

From 'Third World Girl, Selected Poems', 2011, Bloodaxe Books. Reproduced with kind permission of the publisher.

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

In this episode, Maryam talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Love Song for Words' by Nazik al-Mala'ika, translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson.

Nazik al-Mala'ika was born in Baghdad, before moving to Kuwait in 1970. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, they moved to Cairo, where she would live for the rest of her life. She was the author of several books of poetry, including The Nights Lover (1945), The Cholera (1947), Bottom of the Wave (1957) and The sea changes its color (1977). Al-Mala'ika is known as the first Arabic poet to use free verse. She died in 2007 at the age of 83.

Rebecca C. Johnson is a scholar of comparative literature with a specialization in modern Arabic literature and literary culture. Her research focuses on literary exchanges between Arabic and European languages in the 19th & 20th centuries, the history and theory of the novel, and studies of transnational literary circulation and translation. Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation, 1835-1913 was published by Cornell University Press in 2021.

Many thanks to Words Without Borders, who originally published this translation of the Love Song For Words.

Maryam is in conversation with Al Snell & Andrea Witzke-Slot.

*********

Love Song for Words

Why do we fear words

when they have been rose-palmed hands,

fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,

and glasses of heartening wine

sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?

Why do we fear words

when among them are words like unseen bells,

whose echo announces in our troubled lives

the coming of a period of enchanted dawn,

drenched in love, and life?

So why do we fear words?

We took pleasure in silence.

We became still, fearing the secret might part our lips.

We thought that in words laid an unseen ghoul,

crouching, hidden by the letters from the ear of time.

We shackled the thirsty letters,

we forbade them to spread the night for us

as a cushion, dripping with music, dreams,

and warm cups.

Why do we fear words?

Among them are words of smooth sweetness

whose letters have drawn the warmth of hope from two lips,

and others that, rejoicing in pleasure

have waded through momentary joy with two drunk eyes.

Words, poetry, tenderly

turned to caress our cheeks, sounds

that, asleep in their echo, lies a rich color, a rustling,

a secret ardor, a hidden longing.

Why do we fear words?

If their thorns have once wounded us,

then they have also wrapped their arms around our necks

and shed their sweet scent upon our desires.

If their letters have pierced us

and their face turned callously from us

Then they have also left us with an oud in our hands

And tomorrow they will shower us with life.

So pour us two full glasses of words!

Tomorrow we will build ourselves a dream-nest of words,

high, with ivy trailing from its letters.

We will nourish its buds with poetry

and water its flowers with words.

We will build a balcony for the timid rose

with pillars made of words,

and a cool hall flooded with deep shade,

guarded by words.

Our life we have dedicated as a prayer

To whom will we pray . . . but to words?

© Nazik al-Mala’ika. Translation © 2003 by Rebecca C. Johnson.

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

In this episode, India & Samira talk with us about the poem that has been a friend to them – 'On Marriage' from 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran.

India & Samira joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our Lockdown Exchanges.

They are in conversation with Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

**********

On Marriage

By Kahlil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And

what of Marriage, master?

    And he answered saying:

    You were born together, and together you

shall be forevermore.

    You shall be together when the white

wings of death scatter your days.

    Ay, you shall be together even in the

silent memory of God.

    But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

    And let the winds of the heavens dance

between you.

    Love one another, but make not a bond

of love:

    Let it rather be a moving sea between

the shores of your souls.

    Fill each other’s cup but drink not from

one cup.

    Give one another of your bread but eat

not from the same loaf.

    Sing and dance together and be joyous,

but let each one of you be alone,

    Even as the strings of a lute are alone

though they quiver with the same music.

    Give your hearts, but not into each

other’s keeping.

    For only the hand of Life can contain

your hearts.

    And stand together yet not too near

together:

    For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

    And the oak tree and the cypress grow

not in each other’s shadow.

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

In this episode, Michael Cooke talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Fisherman' by Dennis Scott.

​

Michael joined The Poetry Exchange online for one of our Lockdown Exchanges. We are hugely grateful to Michael for spending this time with us and sharing such a beautiful poem and converastion.

Michael Cooke is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.

The 'gift' reading of 'Fisherman' is by John Prebble.

*****

Fisherman

by Dennis Scott

The scales like metal flint his feet,

their empty eyes like me.

How gray their colours in the heat!

Cool as the oily sea.

With gentle hand he slits the heart,

and the flesh as white as milk

and the ribboned entrails fall apart

like the fall of coiling silk.

Some day I too shall fish, and find

on stranger shores than these

the ribs and muscles of my blind

self, rainbowed from the seas.

From 'Uncle Time' by Dennis Scott, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973.

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

In our latest episode, Sue Lawther-Brown talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her: The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats.

We are hugely grateful to Sue for bringing this beautiful poem to us and sharing such a rich and moving conversation.

Sue joined us at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich and we are very grateful to the team there for hosting us so warmly.

You can discover previous conversations about this poem with different guests on episodes 9 and 26 of our podcast.

Michael's play is Tom Fool at Orange Tree Theatre, London.

Paul Henry's forthcoming collection 'As If To Sing' is from Seren Books:

The 'gift' reading of The Lake Isle of Innisfree is by Fiona Bennett.

*********

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

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

In this episode, poet Casey Bailey talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'The Way Home' by Liz Berry.

​

Casey joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.

Casey Bailey is a writer, performer and educator, born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham, UK. Casey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020 - 2022 and the Greater Birmingham Future Face of Arts and Culture 2020.

Casey’s second full poetry collection Please Do Not Touch was published by Burning Eye in 2021. Casey’s debut play ‘GrimeBoy’ was commissioned by the Birmingham Rep in 2020. He was commissioned by the BBC to write ‘The Ballad of The Peaky Blinders’ in 2019. In 2020 the poem was internationally recognised, winning a Webby Award. Casey has performed his poetry nationally, and internationally.

Casey was named as one of ‘Birmingham Live’s’, Birmingham ’30 under 30’ of 2018, Casey is a Fellow of the University of Worcester and in 2021 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Newman University.

www.caseybailey.co.uk

The 'gift' reading of 'The Way Home' is by Roy McFarlane.

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