The Poetry Exchange

In this episode, our hearts are full as we are joined by the glorious poet Imtiaz Dharker, talking about the poem that has been a friend to her: 'Meeting Point' by Louis MacNeice.We are also thrilled to say that this episode will be with you in the month that Poems as Friends - The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology is published - on 9th May 2024. We are hugely grateful to everyone who has contributed poems and stories to its pages, and to all of you for your support and love for The Poetry Exchange over the last 10 years. Imtiaz Dharker is one of the leading and most widely respected poets of our age. "Reading her, one feels that were there to be a World Laureate, Imtiaz Dharker would be the only candidate." - Carol Ann Duffy. Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. On 23rd May 2024, Imtiaz's latest collection Shadow Reader is published by Bloodaxe Books. Shadow Reader is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. ‘Does the warp look back at the one who is weaving and say, This is not how I remember it…?’ We are so delighted to share this conversation with you in the month that Shadow Reader - and our anthology of Poems as Friends - join us in the world. Imtiaz Dharker is in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Roy McFarlane.*********Meeting Point by Louis MacNeiceTime was away and somewhere else,There were two glasses and two chairsAnd two people with the one pulse(Somebody stopped the moving stairs):Time was away and somewhere else.And they were neither up nor down;The stream’s music did not stopFlowing through heather, limpid brown,Although they sat in a coffee shopAnd they were neither up nor down.The bell was silent in the airHolding its inverted poise—Between the clang and clang a flower,A brazen calyx of no noise:The bell was silent in the air.The camels crossed the miles of sandThat stretched around the cups and plates;The desert was their own, they plannedTo portion out the stars and dates:The camels crossed the miles of sand.Time was away and somewhere else.The waiter did not come, the clockForgot them and the radio waltzCame out like water from a rock:Time was away and somewhere else.Her fingers flicked away the ashThat bloomed again in tropic trees:Not caring if the markets crashWhen they had forests such as these,Her fingers flicked away the ash.God or whatever means the GoodBe praised that time can stop like this,That what the heart has understoodCan verify in the body’s peaceGod or whatever means the Good.Time was away and she was hereAnd life no longer what it was,The bell was silent in the airAnd all the room one glow becauseTime was away and she was here. © 1967 by Louis MacNeice. Reproduced with permission of David Higham Associates, Ltd. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, we talk with one of poetry's greatest leading lights, Malika Booker, about the poem that has been a friend to her: ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ by Lorna Goodison.Malika Booker, currently based in Leeds, is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage, and co-founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). Her pamphlet Breadfruit, (flippedeye, 2007) received a Poetry Society recommendation and her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She is published with the Poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). A Cave Canem Fellow, and inaugural Poet in Residence at The Royal Shakespeare Company, Malika was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry and elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022).Malika has won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem TWICE: in 2020 for 'The Little Miracles' (Magma, 2019), and most recently in 2023 for 'Libation', which you can hear her read in this episode.'Libation' was first published in The Poetry Review (112:4). ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ by Lorna Goodison is published in Turn Thanks by Lorna Goodison, University of Illinois Press, 1999.You can read the full text of ‘The Domestic Science of Sunday Dinner’ on our website.This episode closes with a reading of the poem 'Su Casa' by Andrea Witzke Slot, published in her collection 'The Ministry of Flowers' (Valley Press, 2020).P.S. don’t forget you can pre-order your copy of Poems as Friends – The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology – which is published by Quercus Editions on 9th May 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.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.*********Dis Poetryby Benjamin ZephaniahDis poetry is like a riddim dat dropsDe tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shotsDis poetry is designed fe rantinDance hall style, big mouth chanting,Dis poetry nar put yu to sleepPreaching follow meLike yu is blind sheep,Dis poetry is not Party PoliticalNot designed fe dose who are critical.Dis poetry is wid me when I gu to me bedIt gets into me dreadlocksIt lingers around me headDis poetry goes wid me as I pedal me bikeI've tried Shakespeare, respect due dereBut did is de stuff I like.Read the full poem on our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE.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.*********The Thrushby Edward ThomasWhen Winter's ahead,What can you read in NovemberThat you read in AprilWhen Winter's dead? I hear the thrush, and I seeHim alone at the end of the laneNear the bare poplar's tip,Singing continuously. Is it more that you knowThan that, even as in April,So in November,Winter is gone that must go? Or is all your loreNot 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 rememberWhat died into AprilAnd consider what will be bornOf a fair November; And April I love for whatIt was born of, and NovemberFor what it will die in,What they are and what they are not, While you love what is kind,What you can sing inAnd love and forget inAll that's ahead and behind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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*********Love (III)by George HerbertLove bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back,Guilty of dust and sin.But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slackFrom my first entrance in,Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioningIf 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 shameGo 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ TRANSCRIPTIn 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.*********Ceasefireby Michael LongleyIPut in mind of his own father and moved to tearsAchilles took him by the hand and pushed the old kingGently away, but Priam curled up at his feet andWept with him until their sadness filled the building.IITaking Hector’s corpse into his own hands AchillesMade sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake,Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carryWrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.IIIWhen they had eaten together, it pleased them bothTo stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might,Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking stillAnd full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:IV‘I get down on my knees and do what must be doneAnd kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’From 'Ghost Orchid' (Jonathan Cape, 1995), copyright © Michael Longley Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

READ TRANSCRIPTIn 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.*********The Daughterby Carmen GiménezWe 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.*********Timothy Wintersby Charles CausleyTimothy Winters comes to schoolWith 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 crowAnd through his britches the blue winds blow.When teacher talks he won't hear a wordAnd he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,He licks the pattern off his plateAnd he's not even heard of the Welfare State.Timothy Winters has bloody feetAnd he lives in a house on Suez Street,He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floorAnd they say there aren't boys like him anymore.Old Man Winters likes his beerAnd his missus ran off with a bombardier,Grandma sits in the grate with a ginAnd Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.The welfare Worker lies awakeBut the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,So Timothy Winters drinks his cupAnd slowly goes on growing up.At Morning Prayers the Master helvesfor children less fortunate than ourselves,And the loudest response in the room is whenTimothy Winters roars "Amen!"So come one angel, come on tenTimothy Winters says "AmenAmen amen amen amen."Timothy Winters, Lord. AmenFrom 'Collected Poems 1951-2000' (Picador, 2000), © Charles Causley 2000, used by permission of the author’s Estate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FOR TRANSCRIPT CLICK HERE. 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.*********Little Championby Tony HoaglandWhen I get hopeless about human life,which quite frankly is far too difficult for me,I like to remember that in the desert there isa 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 aroundthrough the morning and the night,fluttering, weaving sideways throughthe cactus and the rocks. And when I have to meet all Tuesday afternoonwith 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 championwith orange and black markings on its wings,resting in the shade beneath a ledge of rockwhile its animal sleeps nearby; and I see how the droplets hang and gleam amongthe thorns and drab green leaves of desert plantsand how the butterfly alights and drinks from themdeeply, 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). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FOR TRANSCRIPT CLICK HERE.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.*********You Don't Know What Love Isby Kim AddonizioYou don't know what love isbut you know how to raise it in melike a dead girl winched up from a river. How towash off the sludge, the stench of our past.How to start clean. This love even sits upand blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll wantto get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and driveto some cinderblock shithole in the desertwhere she can drink and get sick and thendance in nothing but her underwear. You knowwhere she's headed, you know she'll wake upwith an ache she can't locate and no moneyand a terrible thirst. So to hellwith your warm hands sliding inside my shirtand your tongue down my throatlike an oxygen tube. Cover mein black plastic. Let the mourners through.From 'What Is This Thing Called Love' by Kim Addonizio (2005, W.W. Norton & Co.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.