Poetry Says

Through making 100 episodes of Poetry Says I’ve had the chance to talk to almost 50 poets from Australia and elsewhere about how they work and the poets they love. Louise Carter was one of the first to take a chance on my new venture (and since came back for a repeat visit!). In this episode she turns the tables on me and we talk about putting together our first collections, trying/failing t...

Here’s what I learned.

Talking with Jeanine Leane gave me so much to think about. We covered what it was like to study and write in Canberra in the 1980s, the role of writing groups in her writing process, the difference between racism and white privilege, the understanding (or lack thereof) of Indigenous Australians amongst settler critics and publishers, and the questions she never gets asked in interviews. Show notes...

My favourite poem – ever – is Dorothy Porter’s ‘Lucky’. In this episode I talk about why it matters so much to me and what it is to have someone who’ll make you coffee while you’re trying to decide where the hell to put that line break. Show notes The Best Australian Poems 2007 , edited by Peter Rose Dorothy Porter’s The Bee Hut A Deaf Rough Trade: Defending Poe...

…I kind of wish I’d written Eddie Paterson’s Redactor . There. Now you know. In this episode I get to hear about how Eddie made this hilarious and moving collection of found poetry, who he was writing to and why, and about his artistic influences. Billy Collins and Carly Rae Jepsen are also mentioned. Show notes Jenny Holzer David McDiarmid Bella Li Michael Farrell Laurie Anderso...

I finally get it. The O’Hara thing. Walking to Work – a strange, broken poem full of dismissiveness and resolve – has finally won me over. Show notes Frank O’Hara Selected Poems from Borzoi Poetry Personism: A Manifesto O’Hara’s celebratory poem Today

This didn’t feel like my first conversation with Newcastle poet Claire Albrecht . We started out with The Mighty Boosh and Atwood, moved on to Claire’s chapbook pinky swear , covered guilt and the writing life, the enduring comfort of Dawson’s Creek and Claudia Rankine. Somewhere in there, I remembered to introduce myself. Show notes The Mighty Boosh’s Killer Roo Morgan Parker Eileen Myles a...

David Brooks’ The Balcony was one of the first poetry books I truly connected with. In this episode I look closer at two of his poems and draw some parallels with another of my favourites, Jane Kenyon . Show notes Wild Duck Sutra in Meanjin Jane Kenyon’s Depression in Winter

‘Fuck you Adam Ford’ is a tough way to introduce yourself to your favourite poet. But that’s what my cousin, Bridget Mackey , ended up doing. This is the story of a Canberra girl who fell in love with a poetry book – and accidentally ended up living inside it. Show notes Bridget’s play Fools Gold Adam’s books Not Quite the Man for the Job , Man Bites Dog and The Third...

To kick off Poetry Says for 2019 I take a look at Kate Lilley’s ‘Pastoral’ – a funny, biting poem about maths class, movies and refusing to write about the seasons. ‘Pastoral’ is from Kate’s 2018 book Tilt , which just took out the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for poetry . Show notes Charles Harpur’s A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest Th...

I’ve been looking for John Russell McCarthy’s Friendship Broken for a while now. It reads more like Luke Davies that something published in 1938. I hope it speaks to you as much as it does me. Show notes The Lives of a Naturalist and a Poet Intertwined in Sierra Madre how many of us have them? by Danez Smith

I love a good list poem. I can’t define them. Stevens is probably a bad example. But I’m going to start there anyway. Show notes Wallace Stevens:  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a List Poem Auden’s Funeral Blues Eloise Grills:  Reading a list of celebrities who own islands as self-care James Waters:  Impossible Images or; a list of things i cant describe Morgan Parker: 13 Ways of Lo...

Joel Deane writes poetry , fiction and non-fiction . In this conversation, Joel and I talk honestly about the place of poetry in between the commitments of daily life. We discuss honouring the compulsion to write without becoming ‘an absolute arsehole’, taking care of oneself in order to be able to do the work, the feeling of not fitting in, and working in cycles. Our outro for this ep...

Five months before her death, Sylvia Plath  wrote to her mother that her bee sequence included ‘the best poems of my life’. But these aren’t the poems we remember her for. These are my thoughts on Plath’s long shadow (and my unsolicited beekeeping tips). As promised, here’s the person-sized swarm that inspired this episode: Show notes Ep 11. Stuart Barnes on Plath Ep...

I suspect this chat with  A.J. Carruthers about experimental poetry in Australia will kick start your next poem. We cover a lot of ground, from defining sound poetry to whether experimental work needs more recognition. But my favourite moment is when A.J. says: ‘Poetry is not a profession. It doesn’t profess, but it does. It’s about doing and about being with.’ Show notes A.J’s S...

My incredibly late take on the movie  Paterson  and a look at  Paterson , the poem. Does it matter that William Carlos Williams’ women are often merely decorative? That one of his most famous poems is about stealing his wife’s breakfast? And should Jim Jarmusch have done better by his female lead? Show notes Ep 38. To get the news from poems Glenn Kenny’s review of Paterson This...

I spoke with Petra White as she was preparing to leave Melbourne for London about her books Reading for a Quiet Morning (GloriaSMH Press, 2017) and A Hunger (John Leonard Press, 2014). We also covered whether it’s interesting to write about motherhood, the impossibility of writing at the office, and that one time I met Petra at Collected Works (and couldn’t remember the title of that p...

Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s some overlap between Ashbery’s Some Trees David Herd’s 3 notes towards a love song  (from his book All Just).  Both are something like love poems that also allow for things ‘to be difficult between us’ . Another shoutout here to Al Filries and the ModPo gang for introducing me to Some Trees all those years ago. (And check...

I’ve been on  Grant Caldwell’s  trail since I came across his poem ‘I am not the trick of the flower’ over a decade ago. In this episode I track him down at the University of Melbourne to finally ask him about this poem along with things like writing from the position of the ‘privileged white male’ and whether it matters if our work ever sees the light of day. S...

Writing poetry shouldn’t be a ‘solitary pursuit’. Here’s how I finally found a poetry mentor, why the mentor-mentee relationship is valuable (and troubled) and why you should be sending drafts (and poems you love) to your friends. Show notes Australian Society of Authors mentorship program This Condensery: Poets on Mentorship Interview with Jennifer Firestone and Eileen Myl...

I first spoke to Sydney poet Louise Carter about Luke Davies two years ago . Since then we’ve talked imposter syndrome  and had many a cathartic poetry-related chat away from the mic. This time around, we dive deeper into Davies’ work, looking at Totem and Interferon Psalms  from new angles.

I stumbled on J.D. McClatchy’s Late Night Ode  very much by chance, but now it feels essential to me. It turns out it’s a Horatian ode  about getting older and letting go (or attempting to). Show notes Horace IV i. W.H. Auden reads In Memory of W.B. Yeats Alice Oswald reads from Memorial Homer’s Odyssey by Simon Armitage

What more can I say? Having this chat was a long-held dream come true. Listen as poet and novelist Lisa Gorton puts Moore’s poetic career in a broader context, discusses what libraries should really be doing with the poetry books they throw out, and what it’s like to make the final calls on a ‘Best’ collection. Show notes Marianne Moore’s What Are Years Lisa reading w...

At the end of May I had the chance to spend a full six days away from home at a writing retreat, working on poems. Here’s what I want to tell you about the things that became clear – about writing and not writing – while I was there. Show notes Commonplace Ep 48. Poets at MacDowell Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts Eddie Paterson’s Redactor Michael Farrell’s I Love Poetry Fiona...

Latin American poetry is so vast and overwhelming! I don’t know where to start! Yep. But  Will Druce  is here with a rough guide to Federico García Lorca , a look at where his writing intersects with Frank O’Hara and Rimbaud, and plenty else to say about writing and reading outside English. We also chat about building and rebuilding poetry communities when moving around the world,  not...