Southword Poetry Podcast

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (11:01) – Eilean Ni Chuilleanáin interview (01:02:57) – Southword poem, Roadkill in Offaly by Simon Costello Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork City in 1942. She was a founder member of Cyphers , the literary journal (1975). Her first collection, Acts and Monuments , won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. The Gallery Press has published her...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (04:21) – Mary O'Malley interview (52:30) – Southword poem, The Burial of Ten-to Two Blue by Paul McMahon Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara, and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at the Universidade Nova there. She served several years on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on th...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (03:04) – Aifric Mac Aodha interview (42:06) – Southword poem, Mermaid Archipelago by Patrick Chapman Aifric Mac Aodha was born in 1979. Her first collection, Gabháil Syrinx , was published in 2010. She has taught in St Petersburg, New York and Canada and has lectured in old and modern Irish at UCD. She lives in Dublin where she works for...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (06:39) – Isabelle Baafi interview (40:41) – Southword poem, Aching Embouchure by Ellen Zhang Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) Recommendation, and Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020), which won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choi...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (08:38) – Gerry Murphy interview (47:21) – Southword poem, Mrs. Violet Club by Polina Cosgrave Gerry Murphy is an Irish poet, born in Cork in 1952. His first poetry collection was A Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards (1985, 1992). He has since published many collections with The Dedalus Press including Rio de la Plata and All That (1993), The...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (03:09) – David Nash interview (48:19) – Southword poem, Soap and Bones by Jerm Curtin David Nash was born in Co. Cork and lives between Ireland and Chile. His work is widely published in journals, and his texts have appeared in numerous art exhibitions and books, including for Wolfgang Tillmans at IMMA. A Spanish-language children’s book,...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (03:20) – Joyelle McSweeney interview (54:50) – Southword poem, Another Beginning by Triin Paja Guggenheim Fellow Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poetry, drama and prose, a well-known critic, and a vital publisher of international literature in translation. McSweeney's recent book, Toxicon and Arachne (Nightboat Books,...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (11:24) – Traci Brimhall interview (57:24) – Southword poem, The Orange by Viviana Fiorentino Traci Brimhall is a professor of creative writing and narrative medicine at Kansas State University. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Love Prodigal (published November 2024 by Copper Canyon). Her poems have appeared in pu...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (07:47) – Michael O’Loughlin interview (01:02:15) – Southword poem, Before I stillbirthed the birch by Katie Griffiths Michael O’Loughlin was born in Dublin in 1958 and studied at Trinity College Dublin. He has published six collections of poetry, including Another Nation: New and Selected Poems (1996), In This Life (2011) and Poems: 1980–...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion (03:30) – Matthew Dickman interview (56:35) – Southword poem, Missing by Daragh Byrne Matthew Dickman grew up in Lents, a working-class area of Portland, Oregon. He earned a BA at the University of Oregon and an MFA at the University of Texas-Austin’s Michener Center. He is the author of the poetry collections Husbandry (2022), Wonderland (...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion (02:46) - John W. Sexton interview (01:00:32) - Southword poem, Doors Opening, Doors Closing by Aidan Matthews John W. Sexton was born in 1958 and identifies with the Aisling poetic tradition. His work spans vision poetry, contemporary fabulism and tangential surrealism. He is the author of seven poetry collections including The Offspring o...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion (03:32) - Gail McConnell interview (01:01:50) - Southword poem, 13.58, January 28th 2022 by James McDermott Gail McConnell is from Belfast. She is the author of  of The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021) and two poetry pamphlets: Fothermather (Ink Sweat & Tears, 2019) and Fourteen (Green Bottle Press, 2018). Fothermather was shor...

(00:00) - Paisley Rekdal interview (53:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion (01:03:15) - Southword poem, Waiting for the baby by Afric McGlinchey Rekdal grew up in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a Chinese American mother and a Norwegian father. She earned a BA from the University of Washington, an MA from the University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies, and an MFA fro...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O'Leary Discussion (04:55) - Deborah Paredez interview (58:00) - Southword poem, Mother Tongue by Grace H. Zhou Deborah Paredez is a poet and cultural critic. She is the author of the poetry volumes This Side of Skin (Wings Press 2002) and Year of the Dog (BOA Editions 2020), and the critical study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memor...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion (08:35) - Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh interview (55:48) - Southword poem, A South Ulster Homestead by Mary O'Donnell Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh was born in Kerry. She has read at festivals in New York, Paris, Montréal, Berlin and Ballyferriter. In 2012 her poem ‘Deireadh na Feide’ won the O’Neill Poetry Prize. ‘Filleadh ar an gCathair’ was chose...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion (08:43) - Martín Espada interview (01:14:46) - Southword poem, When Our Mother Dies by Jenny Mitchell Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest book of poems is called Floaters , winner of the 2021 National Book Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, and a finalist for the Lo...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion (24:23) - Thomas McCarthy interview (1:06:53) - Southword poem, The Woman Who Used To Bleed by Lorraine McArdle Thomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford and educated at UCC. His many collections of poetry include Pandemonium (2016) and Prophecy (2019). A former Editor of Poetry Ireland Review , he is a member of Aosdána. His diaries, Poetr...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O'Leary Discussion (4:00) - Abigail Parry interview (47:23) - Southword poem, My Poetry Isn’t Art Enough by Pragya Gogoi I Think We’re Alone Now was supposed to be a book about intimacy: what it might look like in solitude, in partnership, and in terms of collective responsibility. Instead, the poems are preoccupied with pop music, etymology, surveillance...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion (7:34) - Paddy Bushe interview (51:48) - Southword poem, Perault's Wolf by Tracy Gaughan Paddy Bushe was born in Dublin in 1948 and now lives in Waterville, Co. Kerry. He writes in Irish and in English and he is a member of Aosdána. He received the 2006 Oireachtas prize for poetry, the 2006 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award and the 2017 Ir...

Paul Muldoon is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the most recent, Howdie-Skelp (2021). His other awards include the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 2003 Griffin Prize, the 2015 Pigott Prize, and the 2017 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Born in County Armagh in 1951, he has lived sine 1987 in the Un...

Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of two poetry collections: Far District and House of Lords and Commons . He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry and the American Academy of Art...

Susannah Dickey grew up in Derry and now lives in London. She is the author of four poetry pamphlets, I had some very slight concerns (2017), genuine human values (2018), bloodthirsty for marriage (2020), and Oh! (2022). In 2019 she won the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, and in 2021 she was longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner, a prize granted for a...

Dean Browne won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and his pamphlet, Kitchens at Night , was a winner of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition; it was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2022. His poems have appeared widely in journals such as Banshee, Poetry (Chicago), Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Review, PN Review, Southword, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere. This week's Southwo...

Molly Twomey grew up in Lismore, County Waterford, and graduated in 2019 with an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork. She has been published in Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Irish Times, Mslexia, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She runs an online international poetry event, Just to Say, sponsored by Jacar Press. In 2021, she was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Intr...

Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China, and composes poems both in English and Chinese. While studying civil engineering at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he realized his bigger passion lies in the architecture of language and became a poetry fellow at Michener Center for Writers. He is the recipient of the Joy Harjo Poetry Award and Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His...