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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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In this episode, Gill Gregory talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'On the Departure Platform' by Thomas Hardy.

Gill joined The Poetry Exchange at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. We are hugely grateful to the National Centre for Writing for hosting us so warmly, and to all the readers who visited us there.

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

The 'gift' reading of 'On the Departure Platform' is by Michael Shaeffer.

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On the Departure Platform

by Thomas Hardy

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through

She left me, and moment by moment got

Smaller and smaller, until to my view

               She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff

That down the diminishing platform bore

Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough

              To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,

Behind dark groups from far and near,

Whose interests were apart from ours,

                She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see

That flexible form, that nebulous white;

And she who was more than my life to me

                Had vanished quite.

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,

And in season she will appear again—

Perhaps in the same soft white array—

                But never as then !

—‘And why, young man, must eternally fly

A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well ?’

—O friend, nought happens twice thus ; why,

                I cannot tell!

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In this episode, Andrea Holland talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman.

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Andrea Holland is a poet and lecturer in Creative Writing. As winner of the Norfolk Commission for Poetry her collection 'Broadcasting' was published in 2013 (Gatehouse Press). The collection focuses on the forced requisition of several Norfolk villages for D-Day training in 1942, and the subsequent dislocation of villagers and community. Her pamphlet, 'Borrowed' (Smith/Doorstop, 2007) was first-stage winner of the Poetry Business Competition 2006. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Mslexia, The North, Rialto, Smith's Knoll, and in Slanted: 12 Poems for Christmas (IST, 2014).

Andrea joined us at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. We are hugely grateful to the National Centre for Writing for hosting us so warmly, and to all the readers who visited us there.

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

The 'gift' reading of 'Song of Myself' is by Michael Shaeffer.

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From 'Song of Myself'

Walt Whitman

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,

How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stripped heart,

And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heaped stones, elder, mullein and pokeweed.

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In this episode, poet Gregory Leadbetter talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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Gregory joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute - one of our first in-person exchanges since the pandemic.

He is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.

Gregory Leadbetter is a poet and critic. He is the author of two poetry collections, Maskwork (2020) and The Fetch (2016), both with Nine Arches Press, as well as the pamphlet The Body in the Well (HappenStance Press, 2007), and (with photographs by Phil Thomson) Balanuve (Broken Sleep, 2021). His book Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) won the University English Book Prize 2012.

The 'gift' reading of Kubla Khan is by Roy McFarlane.

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Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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In this episode, Pete Stones talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Old Mary' by Gwendolyn Brooks.

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Pete joined The Poetry Exchange at the Birmingham & Midland Institute - one of our first in-person exchanges since the pandemic.

He is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.

'Old Mary' is read by Pete Stones and Fiona Bennett.

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Old Mary

by Gwendolyn Brooks

My last defense

Is the present tense.

It little hurts me now to know

I shall not go

Cathedral-hunting in Spain

Nor cherrying in Michigan or Maine.

Reproduced by consent of Brooks Permissions.

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In this episode, Dr Maria Augusta Arruda talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Eve Remembering' by Toni Morrison.

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Maria joined The Poetry Exchange online for one of our Lockdown Exchanges. She is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

The 'gift' reading of 'Eve Remembering' is by Fiona Bennett.

*****

Eve Remembering

by Toni Morrison

1

I tore from a limb fruit that had lost its green.

My hands were warmed by the heat of an apple

Fire red and humming.

I bit sweet power to the core.

How can I say what it was like?

The taste! The taste undid my eyes

And led me far from the gardens planted for a child

To wildernesses deeper than any master’s call.

2

Now these cool hands guide what they once caressed;

Lips forget what they have kissed.

My eyes now pool their light

Better the summit to see.

3

I would do it all over again:

Be the harbor and set the sail,

Loose the breeze and harness the gale,

Cherish the harvest of what I have been.

Better the summit to scale.

Better the summit to be.

From Five Poems (Rainmaker Editions, 2002) by Toni Morrison with silhouettes by Kara Walker. Used with permission from The Believer Magazine.

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In this episode, Ana Sampson talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'The Republic of Motherhood' by Liz Berry.

Ana Sampson is a highly accomplished poetry editor. She has edited 8 poetry anthologies including 'Night Feeds and Morning Songs: Honest, fierce and beautiful poems about motherhood', as well as 'She is Fierce' and 'She Will Soar' - two bold and brilliant anthologies of women's verse throughout history. Ana's books have sold over 240,000 copies and she writes and speaks often about books and poetry in the media. She has also spoken about the hidden history of women’s writing at bookshops, festivals, libraries, schools and literary events. www.anasampson.co.uk

We are hugely grateful to Liz Berry and Chatto & Windus for allowing us to share Liz's extraordinary poem in this way. You can buy Liz's entire pamphlet - The Republic of Motherhood - here:

www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/republic-of-motherhood-liz-berry

Ana is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Andrea Witzke Slot and John Prebble.

The 'gift' reading of 'The Republic of Motherhood' is by Andrea Witzke Slot.

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The Republic of Motherhood

by Liz Berry

I crossed the border into the Republic of Motherhood

and found it a queendom, a wild queendom.

I handed over my clothes and took its uniform,

its dressing gown and undergarments, a cardigan

soft as a creature, smelling of birth and milk,

and I lay down in Motherhood’s bed, the bed I had made

but could not sleep in, for I was called at once to work

in the factory of Motherhood. The owl shift,

the graveyard shift. Feedingcleaninglovingfeeding.

I walked home, heartsore, through pale streets,

the coins of Motherhood singing in my pockets.

Then I soaked my spindled bones

in the chill municipal baths of Motherhood,

watching strands of my hair float from my fingers.

Each day I pushed my pram through freeze and blossom

down the wide boulevards of Motherhood

where poplars bent their branches to stroke my brow.

I stood with my sisters in the queues of Motherhood—

the weighing clinic, the supermarket—waiting

for Motherhood’s bureaucracies to open their doors.

As required, I stood beneath the flag of Motherhood

and opened my mouth although I did not know the anthem.

When darkness fell I pushed my pram home again,

and by lamplight wrote urgent letters of complaint

to the Department of Motherhood but received no response.

I grew sick and was healed in the hospitals of Motherhood

with their long-closed isolation wards

and narrow beds watched over by a fat moon.

The doctors were slender and efficient

and when I was well they gave me my pram again

so I could stare at the daffodils in the parks of Motherhood

while winds pierced my breasts like silver arrows.

In snowfall, I haunted Motherhood’s cemeteries,

the sweet fallen beneath my feet—

Our Lady of the Birth Trauma, Our Lady of Psychosis.

I wanted to speak to them, tell them I understood,

but the words came out scrambled, so I knelt instead

and prayed in the chapel of Motherhood, prayed

for that whole wild fucking queendom,

its sorrow, its unbearable skinless beauty,

and all the souls that were in it. I prayed and prayed

until my voice was a nightcry

and sunlight pixelated my face like a kaleidoscope.

© Liz Berry. From 'The Republic of Motherhood' by Liz Berry (Chatto & Windus 2018).

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