Arji's Poetry Pickle Jar

In today's Pickle Jar we're joined by Vidyan Ravinthiran. He's a poet who grew up in a mixed area of Leeds (in the North of England), studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and is now an Associate Professor of English Literature at Harvard. He's the author of two books of verse.  Grun-tu-molani  (Bloodaxe, 2014) was shortlisted for several first collection awards, with individual poe...

On today's show we are joined by Natalie Whittaker poet and secondary school teacher from South East London. Her debut pamphlet  Shadow Dogs  was published by Ignition press in 2018. And She is one of  London Library’s emerging writers for 2020 / 2021 . Her poems have been widely published in UK magazines and anthologies. Her latest pamphlet Tree is just OUT on Verve Publishing...

Back for series two. This week we are joined by Poet, Mentor and Facilitator Katrina Naomi. She has four collections under her belt. these include Wild Persistence , published by Seren and  Typhoon Etiquette , published in 2019 by Verve Poetry Press. She has also had her poetry appear on  on  Poems on the Underground , BBC Radio 4’s  Front Row  and  Poetry Please , an...

For this tenth instalment of the Pickle Jar we invite Cecilia Knapp into the jar. She's a poet, playwright and novelist and the current Young People’s Laureate for London. Her poems have appeared in The White Review, Magma and Bath, She’s a former resident artist at The Roundhouse and a Ted X speaker, and her debut novel is forthcoming from The Borough Press (Harper Collins.) as well as all this s...

Today we are joined by poet, performer, playwright, project manager, programmer, producer and former Canal Laureate of the UK, Jo Bell. She devised the immensely successful online poetry group 52 which is a good reflection of her personal mission to use social media as a stimulus to encourage new writers into the fray. She also has a collection called Kitch published with Nine Arches Press. Today...

In this episode we are joined by artist and amazing human being Abi Palmer. She is an artist and writer exploring the relationship between linguistic and physical communication. her latest book on Penned in the margins is Sanatorium —a fragmented memoir that jumps between a luxury thermal pool and a blue inflatable bathtub. Today she is taking us on a long poem ride of a life time as we look at th...

This week we are joined by Carole Bromley. Carole’s pamphlets (Unscheduled Halt and Skylight) and collections ( A Guided Tour of the Ice House ,  The Stonegate Devil  and  Blast Off! ) are available from  Smith/Doorstop Books Her newest poetry pamphlet about her recent experience of brain surgery is called Sodium 136, by Calder Valley Poetry.  Today, we discuss the Hugo Wi...

In today's Pickle Jar we are joined by the brilliant Anthony Anaxagorou. His  recent collection   After the Formalities  (Penned in the Margins, 2019) was nominated for a TS Eliot Prize. In today's episode he shall be bringing in a little known poem by Robin Beth Schaer called Holdfast. check out the poem here : https://poets.org/poem/holdfast

This week we travel to Wales to talk to Poetry Wales Editor and amazing poet Jonathan Edwards. He's a Costa Prize winner for his debut collection and more recently he has brought his second collection Gen to rave reviews.  He brings with him a poem called 'In the Green Baize' by Alan Perry. A snooker poem guaranteed to get you potting the black. Come have a listen and a learn

In today's Pickle Jar we are joined by Children's Poet Simon Mole. Simon has shared the bill with Simon Armitage, John Cooper Clarke and Kate Tempest. He has also been featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb . Simon co-founded Chill Pill Collective, curating and hosting popular poetry nights at Soho Theatre and the Albany, and was the first ever Poet Laureate for the London borough of Brent. Simon is a...

In today's Pickle Jar we are joined by the brilliant Hannah Lowe. She is a poet, memoirist and academic. Her first poetry collection  Chick (Bloodaxe, 2013) won the Michael Murphy Memorial Award for Best First Collection. Her family memoir  Long Time, No See (Periscope, 2015) featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Her second collection,  Chan ,  is also published by Blood...

Another instalment of the Pickle Jar, this week we are joined by amazing teacher and poet Peter Kahn. Peter Kahn was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2009 and 2017. He is a founding member of Malika’s Kitchen and co-founder of the London Teenage Poetry Slam. He has been a school teacher and university lecturer,  as a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, he founded t...

The opening episode of Arji's Poetry Podcast. Each week we bring in some of the world's best poets to discuss the poems they truly love.  Today we're joined by poet Rishi Dastidar.  Rishi's poetry has been published by Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC amongst many others. His debut collection Ticker-tape is published by Nine Arches Press, and a poem from it was included in The...