Poetry Says

Talking to  Tricia Dearborn  was a really good reality check for a stress bunny writer like myself. We covered everything from routine to writing last lines, along with Tricia’s connection to chemistry, favourite poets like  Vicki Feaver , and definitions of ecopoetry. Tricia brings us  Maggie Nelson’s  poem ‘Green’ from Something Bright, Then Holes  (check out Maggie&#8217...

R D Wood  spoke to me from his vantage point in Kerala about the idea of Australia, the house of poetry, the ethics of being a writer and whether p oliticians can be poetic (and poets Machiavellian).  We also talk about his poem  In the Desert – its creation and the response it received – along with Ted Strehlow’s Songs of Central Australia . There’s a lot to learn about Strehlow and I...

Reeling from the US election while in New York City, I reflect on the poems, books and poetic communities that suddenly became essential this week: Jaap Blonk’s What the president will say and do Jena Osman’s Dropping Leaflets My post-election call to the ModPo hotline (tissues at the ready!) at the Kelly Writers House Lou Carter’s tip on David Orr’s book  Beautiful and Poi...

Rob Wilson’s Free Will and the Clouds  received plenty of love when it came out, for good reason. Today I chat with Rob about how he comes up with his bizarre titles, why he teaches The Red Wheelbarrow to prisoners , and what he does to support his writing. We also listen to a poem by Rob’s friend Ben Frater – To kill the Prime Minister – and hear about the dark fairytale hidden inside...

Jill Jones describes herself as a ‘ poet person living quietly in Adelaide ‘. Today I look into her poem  Back at work after the flu  (from her 1993 book ‘Flagging Down Time’). What does it say about the work poets do and the way this work happens alongside an ever-present day job?

A thought-provoking chat with R.A. Villanueva , author of Reliquaria , after we’d seen some fantastic readings at National Poetry Day Live . We cover plenty of ground, starting off with the influence of slam, intentional vs accidental ways of becoming a writer and the idea of priming yourself to take advantage of opportunities. Then we get into a great discussion of race and poetry, contrast...

‘She got swept too far. She deliberately made herself ugly and wrote those extreme and ridiculous poems.’  Adrienne Rich lived enough for at least two lifetimes and not everyone was happy about it. Today’s episode looks at the poem Integrity  from A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems 1978-1981. I also pull some context from Boundary Conditions: Adrienne Rich’s colle...

A few weeks ago I went along to the  Free Verse Poetry Book Fair  and saw the panel ‘Poetry and Politics’ with Choman Hardi , WN Herbert , RA Villanueva and  Sophie Mayer . Sophie and I then took the conversation off-road. After we cover off interconnectedness, I have a quick whinge about Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Silver Lining . We then consider whether Wordsworth was the first man...

Today I dive into my favourite poem from the last five years:  Hannah Gamble’s  funny and haunting  Growing a Bear . I also detour into a classic Cary Tennis column: I’m going crazy in my job . Hannah is a poetry editor for  Catch Up  among many other good things. Hear her discussing her work on Make (No) Bones (out of Chicago, not Brooklyn!). (I also realised after recording that &#82...

This week South Australian poet SB Wright  gets real about the fact that perfect poetry doesn’t happen the moment the pen hits the page. Sean’s spending  a year focusing on poetry , which leads us to Ira Glass’s advice on the gap between taste and ability , William Stafford’s A Way of Writing , fixed vs. growth mindsets and Jo Bell’s poetry checklist . After looking  ...

A grab-bag of thoughts about the awe-inspiring (but not at all intimidating) Olena Kalytiak Davis  and my ideas on how to approach a poet/poem for the first time. Check out: You and Me Both  by  Dan Chiasson  in The New Yorker The Poem She Didn’t Write and Other Poems  published by Copper Canyon Press, 2014 I had a Ski-Masked Rapist in My House ARE POETS BAD MOTHERFUCKERS????????? I Was Mino...

This week I had fun chatting to Sydney-based poet Benjamin Dodds , author of Regulator  published by Puncher and Wattman. We get a window into his current project about ‘ethically troubling scientific discoveries’, then hear the prose poem  Ape  by Russell Edson. (Put down your breakfast while listening to this one.) Benjamin also reads his beautiful poem  Surrogacy . Next we cover how...

This week I’m attempting to answer a listener question: How do I get into poetry? Poems in this week’s episode: Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost One Art by Elizabeth Bishop Burning Sappho by Gwen Harwood Lucky by Dorothy Porter praise song by Nate Marshall Bonus poems (if you’ve got other ideas for starter poems, let me know!): We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks...

This week I got to talk with  Lisa Brockwell  about three poems that play with the theme of ‘the girl in the poet and the poet in the girl’. We also cover why it’s important to keep reading even when the poems go quiet, the question of poetry ‘scenes’ and, importantly, HBO’s Looking . This week’s poems: Glamourie by Kathleen Jamie fromher book  The Overhau...

This week I make a case for the short WWI poem Adelstrop by Edward Thomas. Then things get a little experimental as I try to answer the question: How does this poem operate in 2016? (Mild spoilers towards the end for Helen Macdonald’s beautiful memoir H is for Hawk .)  If you’re keen to go deeper into this type of poetry you can find the free lectures I’m talking about at Open Ya...

You might already know  Robbie Coburn  as co-host of the fantastic  Australian Poetry Podcast  (a must listen for AusPo fans). Today Robbie tells us his own story, from his first publication in Pi O’s Unusual Work to his recent appearance in Poetry magazine. The poem we dive into this week is High Windows by Phillip Larkin, followed by a sneak peak of Robbie’s forthcoming book, The Oth...

In today’s bumper episode I get to have an in-depth chat with Queensland-based poet Stuart Barnes . We cover how he came to poetry through none other than Tasmanian poet Gwen Harwood, then dive into Sylvia Plath’s poem Ariel. We also talk about the art of the remix poem, how to write a cento, and the upcoming launch of Stu’s first book, Glasshouses, out from University of Queensl...

The wonderful PoemTalk podcast tackled Ted Berrigan’s 3 Pages  back in 2008. For this episode, I’m jumping in with my own interpretation of this ever-shifting poem. Listen to Berrigan’s amazing reading here . And if you have your own ideas about this (or any other) poem, get in touch .

Since reading All the dead boys look like me , a poem for Orlando by Christopher Soto (aka Loma), I’ve understood the tragedy that happened there in an entirely new way. I’ve also been thinking about Walt Whitman’s all-encompassing poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry – a poem that seems to have no boundaries. If you like the sound of the poetry course I mention this week, you can...

I had a blast talking to Sydney-based poet Louise Carter today about UK poet laureate  Carol Ann Duffy and Australian poet Luke Davies . We cover everything from self-doubt to housemates, how copywriting sometimes leads to poetry and what it’s like to have tea with your poetry idol. For bonus points, check out: Louise’s wonderful blog  alone with beauty  and her poem Marrickville on Co...

This week I got to talk to Australian poet Michele Seminara about Elizabeth Bishop’s mysterious, insistent poem Giant Snail . (Bishop’s One Art and Filling Station  also pop up.) Michele is the managing editor of the online creative arts journal Verity La and the author of Engraft , which came out earlier this year. Want to share your best-loved poem with us?  Just say the word…...

‘Appreciation of poetry, one out of 10 or whatever it might be, is quite alien to what a poet feels about poetry.’ So says Judith Wright, a poet I’ve avoided far longer than I want to admit… Read today’s poem  Eroded Hills , check out the Guardian’s obituary for Wright and learn more about her at the Judith Wright Centre .

If the proliferation of posters, t-shirts, mugs and grocery bags urging you towards ‘mindfulness’ is starting to grate, 17th century haiku master Basho has your back in today’s episode. Read Jane Hirshfield’s beautiful translation  or check out the Japanese version  (which I stuffed up by pronouncing the first character ‘Kyoto’ instead of ‘Kyo’&#8230...

At first, Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu seems like your standard tragic Romantic poet. But as Cristina Haraba explains, he’s much actually much more human than that. Read today’s poem With life’s tomorrow time you grasp   and find out more about its translator Corneliu M. Popescu and the Popescu Prize .  

Happiness  was part of my life for years before I took the time to understand the poet who wrote it. Now it’s an even closer friend. Definitely read the non-mangled text of  The Clothes Pin , then make some tea and read Donald Hall’s essay on life with Jane, The Third Thing .