Podcasts about poetry school

In this episode of The Writing Life, writer, poetry programmer, and NCW Academy mentor Julia Bird shares her insights into developing your creative practice.   Julia Bird is a highly experienced poetry programmer who has worked for organisations including the Poetry School and The Poetry Society. As a freelancer, she's worked for literary development agencies, festivals, publishers and magazines, and in arts, university and healthcare settings. Through her company Jaybird Live Literature she has produced eight Arts Council England-funded touring poetry shows; and she is the author or co-author of six poetry collections.   She sits down with NCW Programme Officer Ellie to discuss practical advice for those looking to pursue a creative career. Together, they explore how structured mentoring can help writers to develop their practice, guidance for bringing out the vibrancy of your ideas in funding applications, and the barriers writers and creatives may face along the way.   If you're interested in learning more from Julia, go to nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/mentoring/ to book a mentoring session with her now.

Griffin's favorite modern-day comforts! Rachel's favorite poet you might not know you know! Music: “Money Won't Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Native Women Lead: https://www.nativewomenlead.org/

In this episode of The Writing Life, poets Rebecca Goss and Heidi Williamson discuss using place as a vessel to write about difficult subjects and memories in poetry. Rebecca Goss is a poet, tutor and mentor, living in Suffolk. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, anthologies and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Arts online. Her third full-length collection, Girl, was published with Carcanet/Northern House in 2019 and was shortlisted in the East Anglian Book Awards 2019. Her fourth full-length collection, Latch, was published in 2023. Heidi Williamson's first collection Electric Shadow was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize. Heidi works with poets worldwide by Skype as a Poetry Surgeon for The Poetry Society, teaches for The Poetry School, and mentors writers through the National Centre for Writing. In this podcast, Rebecca and Heidi discuss the moments they knew they were ready to write about their past experiences, and the power that comes from giving yourself permission to feel the happiness alongside the pain when writing about difficult moments in their lives. They also explore the importance of drawing from memories of landscape and place, the power of quietness in poetry, and how researching for writing may initially feel inauthentic but is actually a powerful tool for building depth. 

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.*********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, 1998), copyright © Michael Longley 1998. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Eve Grubin is the author of Morning Prayer (Sheep Meadow Press), The House of Our First Loving (Rack Press) and Grief Dialogue (Rack Press). She is a lecturer at NYU in London and a tutor at the Poetry School. Eve received an AHRC / TECHNE  scholarship to write her PhD thesis (Kingston University): ‘Boat of Letters and the Poetics of Reticence: A Creative and Critical Thesis'.    In this episode Eve reflects on how, as a professional poet, she came to mastering academic writing within her PhD.  She talks about how, even though she was confident as a writer, she experienced challenges to developing her voice within her doctorate and shares some advice for those facing similar struggles.   Eve shares how understanding of the work of the thesis as contributing to a wider conversation within the scholarly community helped her to shift her perspective.   We also discuss the elegance of a well-crafted footnote!   The episode finishes with a top tip about the importance of identity.   You can find out more about Eve's work here:  https://evegrubin.com/ If you would like a useful weekly email to support you on your PhD journey you can sign up for ‘Notes from the Life Raft' here:  https://mailchi.mp/f2dce91955c6/notes-from-the-life-raft  

Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams's work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gives similar treatment to Vaughan Williams. Our essayists share their unexpected perspective on Vaughan Williams's work, taking it outside the standard ‘English pastoral' box, in a series of accessible essays, part of the Vaughan Williams season on Radio 3. Essay 1: Clare Shaw – poet/dramatist Clare considers the role that Vaughan Williams' setting to music of the Welsh hymn Rhosymedre has played in their life. They first played it as a teenager on the viola, for the Burnley Youth Orchestra. It symbolised an expression of beauty, love and hope, a sense of voice and connection to place and possibility... It is also that rare moment in music where the viola gets to carry the melody. Then, in Clare's fifties, when their mother (a cellist) died, the piece became a conduit for overwhelming grief, a way of holding the horrific and sublime experience of being present at the moment of death. Clare came home after their mother had died and played Rhosymedre, then wrote this poem about her and the music. Clare Shaw is a poet and performer, tutor and trainer. They have four poetry collections from Bloodaxe: Straight Ahead (2006), Head On (2012), Flood (2018) and Towards a General Theory of Love (2022). Clare is a regular tutor with a range of literary organisations - including the Poetry School, the Wordsworth Trust and the Arvon Foundation - delivering creative writing courses, workshops and mentoring sessions in a variety of different settings, with individuals at all levels of ability, confidence and experience. They work with the Royal Literary Fund and the Writing Project, supporting the development of writing skills in academic settings and workplaces. Clare is the co-director of the Kendal Poetry Festival - and involved in a range of innovative projects with artists and practitioners in other disciplines, including psychology, visual arts and music. Clare is also a mental health educator. All their work is underpinned by a deep faith in language: words have the power to harm and help us, and powerful language can transform us as individuals, communities and societies. Writer and reader Clare Shaw Sound designer Paul Cargill Producers Polly Thomas and Yusra Warsama Exec producer Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3

This week we are joined by award-winning poet John McCullough whose poems have appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Poetry London and Best British Poetry. His first collection The Frost Fairs (Salt, 2011) won the Polari First Book Prize and was Book of the Year for The Independent and The Poetry School. His last collection Reckless Paper Birds was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. Finally he has his new collection called Panic Response out with Penned in the Margins. Today he gives us a poem by the brilliant Caroline Bird. We talk space, pauses and line-breaks in this fearless breakdown of an absolute belter.

Leah Umansky is the author of two book-length collections, The Barbarous Century (2018), Domestic Uncertainties (Blazevox, 2012), and two chapbooks, Straight Away the Emptied World (Kattywompus Press, 2016), and the Mad Men-inspired Don Dreams and I Dream (Kattywompus Press, 2014). Her writing has been widely published in places like The New York Times, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A Day, USA Today, POETRY, Guernica, and American Poetry Review. She has been the host and curator of the New York City-based poetry series COUPLET since 2011, and is a graduate of the MFA Program in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Leah has become well known for her poetry inspired by TV series, such as Mad Men, Westworld, and Mr. Robot. Many of her Game of Thrones-inspired poems have been translated into Norwegian and Bengali. In 2013, Flavorwire named her #7 of 23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry, and her chapbook Don Dreams and I Dream was voted one of The Top 10 Chapbooks To Read Now in 2014 by Time Out New York. Leah has been a middle and high school English teacher for fifteen years and has also taught workshops at The Poetry School, Hudson Valley Writers Center, and Memorial Sloan Kettering's Visible Ink Program. She is also a collage-artist who has designed all of her book covers. In ‘Where are the Stars?', one of the poems in her collection The Barbarous Century, Leah writes: ‘The self is mapped in certainties. I am certain that I can measure this in words.' Those kind of certainties are consistent preoccupations of Leah's work: hers is a poetry that frequently asserts ‘I am…', ‘I will…', ‘This is what I mean…', and there is a self-confidence and ambition in her writing, especially in a poem like the first we look at together, ‘Unleashed', that makes an interrogation of the self possible, especially the female self. In that poem and elsewhere, Leah explores the way that people change and suggests that such change can be immensely rewarding if we risk embracing it. This is sometimes an idealistic poetry that seeks to celebrate what is good in the world (at one point in our conversation, Leah says that ‘there's always room for celebration'), but it is also a realistic one. With its desire to show what it's like to be alive, Leah's poetry is also happy - and sometimes seems compelled - to call out those things and those people who live meanly and selfishly, such as the ‘tyrant' in her recent work - a thinly-disguised version of Donald Trump sometimes, but often a much broader figure of someone, usually a man, who has no sense of decency. And often that examination of goodness is bound up with questions of gender and in particular - as is evident in a poem we discuss, ‘[Of Men]' - in the relationship between men and women. Just as these poems challenge traditional and obsolete notions of gender roles in their subject matter, so too their form bends and sometimes dismantles poetic conventions. Leah brings a tremendous energy and virtuosity to her work and to the way she talks about her work, and I think that comes across clearly in this interview. Please do check out the poems, which you can find on the Poetry Centre website - just look up the Podcast page - and seek out Leah's work. There are links to her books, her website, and her social media on the Podcasts page too. Thank you for listening!

Steven J Fowler chats asemic poetry and the kindness of the avant-garde writing world with Michelle Moloney King. No editing of this video, forgive the cough at the beginning as I whip baby grows out of the shot view, lockdown life, eh! I live the meta vibe of no editing so enjoy or not, whatever. What a cool chap, so kind and considered...to have so many avant-garde books published and so open to supporting all in the field....sound fella. WHO: SJ Fowler is a writer, poet and artist who lives in London. His work has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Somerset House, Tate Britain, London Sinfonietta, Southbank Centre, National Centre for Writing, National Poetry Library, Science Museum and Liverpool Biennial amongst others. He has published eight collections of poetry, five of artworks, six of collaborative poetry plus volumes of selected essays and selected collaborations. His writing has explored subjects as diverse as prescription drugs, films, fight sports, museums, prisons and animals. He is the founder and curator of The Enemies Project and Poem Brut as well as poetry editor at 3am magazine and former executive editor at The Versopolis Review. He is lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature at Kingston University, has taught at Tate Modern, Poetry School and Photographer's Gallery and is a Salzburg Global Fellow. He is the director of Writers' Centre Kingston and European Poetry Festival. LINKS: S J Folwer website and Twitter http://www.stevenjfowler.com/ https://twitter.com/stevenjfowler Asker of questions https://michellemoloneyking.com/ https://twitter.com/MoloneyKing https://beirbuajournal.wordpress.com/ Beir Bua Journal https://beirbuajournal.wordpress.com/ https://twitter.com/BeirBuaJournal

Christina Thatcher is an award-winning poet, a creative writing lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, poetry editor of The Cardiff Review, tutor for The Poetry School, and runs Wales’ largest writing group, Roath Writers. Christina’s debut poetry anthology, ‘More Than You Were’, grapples with the loss of her father from addiction and was written as the creative component of her PHD in Creative Writing from Cardiff University. The critical component deals with writing about death and using writing as liberation from disenfranchised grief. Her most recent anthology, ‘How To Carry Fire’, is in part a follow on from ‘More Than You Were’, but it is clear that Christina felt a cathartic sense of freedom and expansion when writing it. Both were published by Parthian Books. Christina talks in her interview about moving to Wales from America and about how she started writing poetry from a young age as a form of escapism; she offers sound advice to aspiring poets about finding one’s voice and talks us through how the title of ‘How To Carry Fire’ came into being through retrospection of her family’s trauma; and she explains how poetry helps her make meaning of the world and her place within it. Her words are as inspiring on the page as they are when she babbles with Megan Thomas and if you aren’t rushing out to buy her collections after listening, you’ll be rushing to your notepad to write yourself.

Raymond Antrobus is a poet, editor and educator. He was one of the first recipients of the MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths University, and has held fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works iii and Jerwood Compton Poetry, as well as residencies in deaf and hearing schools around London. Raymond is a founding member of the spoken-word collective Chill Pill, the Keats House Poets Forum and a board member at The Poetry School. This is his first published short story.  His word of the day is BOYS.  Full transcript of episode available here   CW: This episode contains discussion of themes that some listeners may find distressing.  CONNECT WITH RAYMOND:  I: @raymond_antrobus T: @RaymondAntrobus   #AnthemsBlack is a collection of 31 original manifestos, speeches, stories, poems and rallying cries written and voiced by exceptional UK Black contributors. It was created, executive produced and sound designed by Hana Walker-Brown with producers Bea Duncan and Jaja Muhammad. The artwork is by Mars West.  Resources: Victim Support Independent charity offering support for people affected by crime or traumatic events.  Phone: 0808 1689 111 (24/7) Website: https://www.victimsupport.org.uk (24/7 live chat) Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline to discuss things including sexuality, gender identity, and emotional wellbeing. Website w/chat: https://switchboard.lgbt  Phone: 0300 330 0630 (Every day 10am - 10pm) Survivors UK – Male Rape and Sexual Abuse Support A range of support options to help those who identify as men recover from experiences of sexual abuse or rape. National Helpline: 0845 122 1201 Website: https://www.survivorsuk.org  Webchat available Monday-Sunday 12:00 - 20:00 CALM CALM is the Campaign Against Living Miserably, for men aged 15 to 35. Phone: 0800 58 58 58 (daily, 5pm to midnight) Website: www.thecalmzone.net

In this episode of the Written to Speak Podcast, Tanner Olson shares a few poems off his latest EP, Notes Volume 2. Notes Volume 2 is available wherever you stream music. Poetry School.Book Launch Team.Looking for something to read? Check out my first book, I'm All Over The Place.Buy the book on my websiteBuy the book on AmazonTo become a Patron and support the mission of Written to Speak, visit www.patreon.com/writtentospeak.Visit writtentospeak.com to read, shop, or watch.Written to Speakwrittentospeak.comInstagramSpotifyiTunesThe music from this episode is by Matthew DoeringFollow Matt on InstagramSupport the show (http://www.writtentospeak.com/podcast)

Tanner Olson, poet of Written to Speak, joins Andy and Sarah to talk about his Poetry School happening virtually this fall, including how poetry can be beneficial for kids, who this school is for, and what the curriculum includes. Learn more and sign up at writtentospeak.com/poetry-school-1.

Mimi Khalvati speaks with John Greening about losing her Persian origins in an Isle of Wight boarding school, the creative benefits of constrained poetic forms, the neglected role of abstraction in English poetry and why she co-founded the Poetry School. The post Mimi Khalvati appeared first on The Royal Literary Fund.

POETRY:SCHOOL WORK...HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY THIS EPISODE IM WAS JUST GONNA GIVE UP CAUSE IT NEVER RECORDED CORRECTLY BUT HERE YOU GO!

In GBA 331 we get better acquainted with Hel Robin Gurney. They talk writing, fairytales, mythology, folklore, poetry, stories, the process of creating and developing their show The Sleeping Princess and so much more. Robin plugs: 5th May Poetry Society 2pm: Fairytale Double Bill: https://www.facebook.com/events/615314005470398/ The Sleeping Princess at Manchester Fringe, Reading Fringe, Camden Fringe: https://helgurney.wordpress.com/ April 28th Poetry Cafe: Wilderness: New Queer Writing: https://www.facebook.com/events/1521948347932126/ The Emergence of Trans: https://transseminars.com/ I plug: Mansplaining Masculinity: The Book https://unbound.com/books/mansplaining-masculinity/ What About the Men? Mansplaining Masculinity: https://soundcloud.com/standuptragedy/sut-presents-what-about-the-men-mansplaining-maculinity http://mansplainingmasculinity.co.uk/ Down to a sunless sea: memories of my dad: https://medium.com/@goosefat101/down-to-a-sunless-sea-memories-of-my-dad-d1d2d3a61360 The Family Tree: http://thefamilytreepodcast.co.uk/ https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-family-tree/id1113714688 We mention: Howl of the Bantee: https://soundcloud.com/standuptragedy/sut-presents-howl-of-the-bantee AJ: https://twitter.com/anathemajane The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Larousse-Encyclopedia-Mythology-Robert-Graves/dp/185152519X National Novel Writing Month: https://nanowrimo.org/ Buffy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer Tempest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest_(play) Miranda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_(The_Tempest) Caliban: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliban Sycorax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycorax Prospero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero Shakespeare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare Kate Tempest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Tempest James Webster: https://websterpoet.wordpress.com/ Hackney Hammer and Tongue: http://www.hammerandtongue.com/hackney/ Genesis Poetry: https://genesiscinema.co.uk/GenesisCinema.dll/WhatsOn?Film=204877 Midas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas Medusa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa Hollie McNish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollie_McNish Andrew Lang's Fairy Books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lang%27s_Fairy_Books Tolkien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien Lord of the Rings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings Eowyn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89owyn Aragorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragorn Faramir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faramir The Silmarillion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion History of Middle Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Middle-earth Galadriel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galadriel Christopher Tolkien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Tolkien The Arda Reconstructed by Douglas Kane: https://www.amazon.com/Arda-Reconstructed-Creation-Published-Silmarillion/dp/1611460891 Briar Rose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood by Jack Zipes: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trials-Tribulations-Little-Riding-Hood/dp/0415908353 Once Upon A Time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(TV_series) Poetry School: https://poetryschool.com/interviews/meet-digital-poet-residence-interview-jay-bernard/ Jay Bernard: http://jaybernard.co.uk/ Ted Hughes Award: http://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/ted-hughes-award/ Help more people get better acquainted. If you like what you hear why not write an iTunes review? Follow @GBApodcast on Twitter. Like Getting Better Acquainted on facebook. Tell your friends. Spread the word!

This episode is in two parts. A full transcript is available to download here: https://lunarpoetrypodcasts.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ep-95-khairani-barokka-wayne-holloway-smith-lpp-transcript.pdf Part one: David Turner chats to Khairani Barokka about co-editing the first major UK anthology of poetry and essays by Disabled and D/deaf poets, Stairs and Whispers. The pair also talk about Khairani's upcoming debut collection, Rope. http://www.khairanibarokka.com/ http://docs.tenderjournal.co.uk/tender-eight.pdf http://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/khairani-barokka-poetry-collection-indigenous-species/ Part two (27:39): Lizzy Palmer talks to Wayne-Holloway-Smith about his debut collection, Alarum (Bloodaxe Books) and teaching a short course at The Poetry School. http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/alarum-1133

In this podcast Jennifer Williams talks to Illinois-born, Bath-based poet Carrie Etter about her newest collection, Scar (Shearsman 2016), a sequence exploring the impact of climate change on her home state of Illinois which speaks to problems faced by all of us as we enter this period of environmental catastrophe. They also discuss the importance of introducing students to a diverse range of poetic styles and voices, trends in American and UK poetry, and much more. http://carrieetter.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1096-etter-carrie https://www.serenbooks.com/author/carrie-etter Carrie Etter is an American poet resident in England since 2001. Previously she lived in Normal, Illinois (until age 19) and southern California (from age 19 to 32). In the UK, her poems have appeared in, amongst others, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry Review, PN Review, Shearsman, Stand and TLS, while in the US her poems have appeared in magazines such as Aufgabe, Columbia, Court Green, The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Seneca Review. Her first collection, The Tethers, was published by Seren in June 2009, and her second, Divining for Starters, containing more experimental work, was published by Shearsman in 2011. Her third collection, Imagined Sons, was published by Seren in 2014. Scar, her newest book, was published by Shearsman in 2016. She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for Bath Spa University and has been a tutor for The Poetry School since 2005.

Season 1 of The Link Break comes to an end and our special guest is Paula Meehan, an Irish poet and playwright. Paula’s work is much translated and celebrated; among the prizes she has won are The Martin Toonder Award (1995), the Butler Literary Award (1998) and the Denis Devlin Award (2002). In this episode Paula speaks generously about her childhood, her Catholic upbringing, witnessing ‘living’ history in Ireland, and the role of private speech in the public domain. There’s more poetry sparks too, as Ryan considers all the beds he’s ever slept in (and so will you). Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com

This month, Ryan talks to the Australian poet, Ouyang Yu. Born in China, Yu is a controversial figure within Australian literature, often exploring the dilemmas of transnational artists caught between different literary, cultural and linguistic traditions in a raw, uncompromising style that he has made his own (Yu himself refers to the ‘polished’ poem as “an arse wiped clean”). In this interview, Ryan and Ouyang discuss language barriers, mis-prints and the importance of making 'creative mistakes'. Plus, more poetry sparks! Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield is our guest this week. Jane reads from her work, and shares the body, heart and mind that informs her deceptively clear, attentive poetry, asking why 'how happy we are, how unhappy we are, doesn't matter'. And Ryan offers some more 'poetry sparks' to nourish your own ideas. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

We're starting the New Year on a high. This month, The Line Break listens in on the wonderful Mark Doty, poet and author of Deep Lane, recently nominated for the T S Eliot Prize. And back with two more poetry sparks, Ryan has you writing transcendentally about the mundane, and exploring the things you shouldn't say. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

Is there joy in sorrow? Can tragedy ever be funny? This month, our guest is Caroline Bird, a poet who delights in troubling sensibilities and leading her audience down the garden path before swiftly turning the hose on them. Where other poets might tell it like it is, Ryan and Caroline explore how the most meaningful poems can often be found at the far corners of things, and how poetry finds truth in a world of ‘no facts’ and ‘not saying’. Plus, more poetry sparks from Ryan! So lean in, listener, but be careful – there’s a fist aimed at your heart. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

The power of poetry comes partly from its ability to explode a language when it no longer feels adequate enough to explain the extraordinary times we live in. This month on The Line Break, Ryan talks to the Singapore-born poet, editor and translator - Alvin Pang - about multiculturalism and poetry as a force of resistance: against public expectations, political oppression and cultural efficiencies, as well as our own longings, ambivalences, lost hopes, fears and anxieties. Alvin recites a few of his extraordinary poems, and Ryan sets two more poetry sparks for you all to try out: writing family, and lashing out against bullies, bosses, and dictators. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com Produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser

For our third episode, Ryan talks to the American poet Mary Ruefle about finding the joy in the solitary act of writing poetry, the need to talk to yourself, and we hear Mary read from a selection of her incredibly distinctive work. And there’s more poetry sparks for you to try out, re-working found text with Tippex, and getting lost in language. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions @culturelaser with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.

This month on The Line Break, Ryan re-visits an interview with poet and journalist Kwame Dawes and discusses the challenges of writing poetry about often painful world events, and how to find beauty, happiness and truth in the 'cesspools of experience' that follow. And Ryan sets out more of his 'poetry sparks', including how to write a blues poem. Listeners to The Line Break can also join the The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets. http://campus.poetryschool.com This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com @culturelaser with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.

The Poetry School welcomes you to a new poetry podcast, our very first (be gentle). For our pilot outing, host Ryan Van Winkle re-visits his 2013 Scottish Poetry Library podcast interview with TS Eliot-prize winner, Philip Gross, ranging across making up names for colours, comparing the similarities of poetry and making scones, and asking what happens in the thought vortex of ‘What if? And then?’ Listeners can also join The Line Break group on CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s free online community for poets http://campus.poetryschool.com. This episode is produced by Culture Laser Productions http://www.culturelaser.com with thanks to the Scottish Poetry Library for their support.