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.

*********

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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In this episode, Jessica talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'From Blossoms' by Li-Young Lee.

​

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

Jessica works as an Audio Producer with Listening Books, an audiobook lending charity for those that find their illness, mental health, physical or learning disability affects their ability to read the printed word or hold a book.

Jessica is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

The 'gift' reading of 'From Blossoms' is by Michael Shaeffer.

*****

From Blossoms

by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes

this brown paper bag of peaches

we bought from the boy

at the bend in the road where we turned toward

signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,

from sweet fellowship in the bins,

comes nectar at the roadside, succulent

peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,

to carry within us an orchard, to eat

not only the skin, but the shade,

not only the sugar, but the days, to hold

the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into

the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live

as if death were nowhere

in the background; from joy

to joy to joy, from wing to wing,

from blossom to blossom to

impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee, “From Blossoms” from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee. Reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions Ltd.

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In this special, feature-length episode, pioneering broadcaster, writer and host of On Being, Krista Tippett talks about the poem that has been a friend to her: ‘Good Lord The Light’ by Christian Wiman.

Krista Tippett has created a singular space for reflection and conversation in American and global public life. She founded and leads the On Being Project — a groundbreaking media and public life initiative pursuing “deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.” As the creator and host of the Peabody Award-winning On Being radio show, heard on over 400 public radio stations across the US, Tippett takes up the great animating questions of human life: What does it mean to be human, how we do want to live, and who will we be to each other?

In 2014, President Obama awarded Krista the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.”

Krista is also the author of three books at the intersection of spiritual inquiry, social healing, science, and the arts: Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living; Einstein’s God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit and Speaking of Faith, a memoir of religion in our time.

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

‘Good Lord The Light’ can be found in poet Christian Wiman’s latest collection – ‘Survival is a Style’, from Farrar, Straus and Geroux.

You can listen to Krista’s extraordinary range of life-expanding conversations through the On Being podcast – which can be found wherever you get your podcasts and at www.onbeing.org.

The 'gift' reading of 'Good Lord The Light' is by Michael Shaeffer.

*********

GOOD LORD THE LIGHT

by Christian Wiman

Good morning misery,

goodbye belief,

good Lord the light

cutting across the lake

so long gone

to ice —

There is an under, always,

through which things still move, breathe,

and have their being,

quick coals and crimsons

no one need see

to see.

Good night knowledge,

goodbye beyond,

good God the winter

one must wander

one’s own soul

to be.

From 'Survival is a Style' - Farrar, Straus and Giroux (February 2020)

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In this episode, Lewi talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'The Horses' by Ted Hughes.

​

Lewi joined The Poetry Exchange online as part of Manchester Literature Festival 2020.

Lewi is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

The 'gift' reading of 'The Horses' is by Fiona Bennett.

*****

The Horses

By Ted Hughes

I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.

Evil air, a frost-making stillness,

Not a leaf, not a bird-

A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.

But the valleys were draining the darkness

Till the moorline blackening dregs of the brightening grey

Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:

Huge in the dense grey ten together

Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,

With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,

Making no sound.

I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.

Grey silent fragments

Of a grey still world.

I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.

The curlews tear turned its edge on the silence.

Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sun

Orange, red, red erupted

Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,

Shook the gulf open, showed blue,

And the big planets hanging

I turned

Stumbling in a fever of a dream, down towards

The dark woods, from the kindling tops,

And came the horses.

There, still they stood,

But now steaming, and glistening under the flow of light,

Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves

Stirring under a thaw while all around them

The frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.

Not one snorted or stamped,

Their hung heads patient as the horizons,

High over valleys, in the red levelling rays

In din of the crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,

May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,

Hearing the horizons endure.

New Selected Poems by Ted Hughes. Faber & Faber; Main edition (6 Mar. 1995)

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In this episode, Fehmida talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou.

​

Fehmida joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our Lockdown Exchanges, as part of Manchester Literature Festival 2020.

You can also find out more about our wonderful guest, Fehmida, and the work she pioneers for women and those who are under-represented in publishing here:

www.fehmidamaster.com

www.masterhousepublishing.com

Fehmida is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

*****

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" from And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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In this episode, Tom talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Aubade' by Philip Larkin.

Tom visited The Poetry Exchange in February 2020 for what turned out to be our last live event of the year before the first Covid-19 lockdown. He joined us at beautiful Manchester Central Library and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Al Snell.

The 'gift' reading of 'Aubade' is by Al Snell.

*****

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.  

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.  

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.  

Till then I see what’s really always there:  

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,  

Making all thought impossible but how  

And where and when I shall myself die.  

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse  

—The good not done, the love not given, time  

Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because  

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;  

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,  

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,  

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,  

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,  

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill  

That slows each impulse down to indecision.  

Most things may never happen: this one will,  

And realisation of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without  

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave  

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.  

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,  

Have always known, know that we can’t escape,  

Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring  

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin, "Aubade" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.

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In this episode, Jenny talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'Mushrooms' by Sylvia Plath.

Jenny joined The Poetry Exchange online and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and John Prebble.

Fiona reads the gift reading of 'Mushrooms'.

*****

Mushrooms

by Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very

Whitely, discreetly,

Very quietly

Our toes, our noses

Take hold on the loam,

Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,

Stops us, betrays us;

The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on

Heaving the needles,

The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.

Our hammers, our rams,

Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,

Widen the crannies,

Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,

On crumbs of shadow,

Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.

So many of us!

So many of us!

We are shelves, we are

Tables, we are meek,

We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers

In spite of ourselves.

Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning

Inherit the earth.

Our foot’s in the door.

From Collected Poems (1981) by Sylvia Plath, published by Faber and Faber Ltd.

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In this episode, poet, theologian and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Cuimhne An Uisce' / 'A Recovered Memory of Water' by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian from Ireland whose poetry and prose has been published widely across Ireland, the US and the UK. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being, a hugely successful podcast where he explores a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing, this podcast had more than a million downloads of its first season.

www.padraigotuama.com

onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound

​

Pádraig joined The Poetry Exchange online and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

​

Many thanks to Gallery Press for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. Do visit them for more inspiration here:

www.gallerypress.com

Fiona reads the gift reading of 'A Recovered Memory of Water'.

*****

Cuimhne An Uisce / A Recovered Memory of Water

by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon

Sometimes when the mermaid’s daughter

is in the bathroom

cleaning her teeth with a thick brush

and baking soda

she has the sense the room is filling

with water.

It starts at her feet and ankles

and slides further and further up

over her thighs and hips and waist.

In no time

it’s up to her oxters.

She bends down into it to pick up

handtowels and washcloths and all such things

as are sodden with it.

They all look like seaweed—

like those long strands of kelp that used to be called

‘mermaid-hair’ or ‘foxtail.’

Just as suddenly the water recedes

and in no time

the room’s completely dry again.

A terrible sense of stress

is part and parcel of these emotions.

At the end of the day she has nothing else

to compare it to.

She doesn’t have the vocabulary for any of it.

At her weekly therapy session

she has more than enough to be going on with

just to describe this strange phenomenon

and to express it properly

to the psychiatrist.

She doesn’t have the terminology

or any of the points of reference

or any word at all that would give the slightest suggestion

as to what water might be.

‘A transparent liquid,’ she says, doing as best she can.

‘Right,’ says the therapist, ‘keep going.’

He coaxes and cajoles her towards word-making.

She has another run at it.

‘A thin flow,’ she calls it,

casting about gingerly in the midst of the words.

‘A shiny film. Dripping stuff. Something wet.’

From 'The Fifty Minute Mermaid', Gallery Press, 2007.

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In this episode, Charlie talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald.

​

Charlie joined The Poetry Exchange online, via video call, for one of our 'Lockdown Exchanges' and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett Alistair Snell.

​

Many thanks to Alice Oswald and United Agents for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. Find out more about Alice and her work here: www.unitedagents.co.uk/alice-oswald

Al reads the gift reading of 'A Short Story of Falling'.

*****

A Short Story of Falling

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

Reprinted by permission of Alice Oswald and United Agents

Source: Falling Awake (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016)

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In this episode, world-renowned actor, Brian Cox CBE talks with us about two poems that have been friends to him – 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robert Burns and 'I am' by John Clare.

Brian joined The Poetry Exchange online, from his home, over the course of lockdown in 2020. He is a Scottish actor who works in film, television and theatre, and as a multiple award-winner, has gained huge respect in the industry for the many captivating roles he has undertaken. He us perhaps most recently known for starring in HBO's hugely popular and critically acclaimed television series, 'Succession'.

Michael reads the gift reading of 'I Am'.

*****

Ae Fond Kiss

by Robert Burns

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae fareweel, and then forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,

While the star of hope she leaves him?

Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;

Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,

Naething could resist my Nancy;

But to see her was to love her;

Love but her, and love forever.

Had we never lov'd sae kindly,

Had we never lov'd sae blindly,

Never met—or never parted—

We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!

Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!

Thine be ilka joy and treasure,

Peace. enjoyment, love, and pleasure!

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae fareweel, alas, forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!

*****

I Am

by John Clare

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes—

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;

Even the dearest that I loved the best

Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

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