Sunday, September 6, 2015

Poetry Monday: The Poetry Magazine Podcast

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit of a podcast fan.  They’re easy to slot into the day, listening while you cook, clean, iron, drive or do other chores that engage your body.  Some of my favourites which I try not to miss and have blogged about before are Regime Books’ Australian Poetry Podcast and Jacket2’s PoemTalk, but today I’ve enjoyed The Poetry Magazine’s podcast run by the Poetry Foundation.

This one includes an analysis of several the poems in the September issue, which focuses on Irish poets.  The podcast looks at three of the poems in the magazine - specifically Michelle O’Sullivan’s “Bespoke", Billy Ramsell’s “Things No Longer There", and Victoria Kennefick’s “Paris Syndrome".  There’s also an interview with Patrick Cotter, who guest-edited the edition and wrote the introduction.  Though The Poetry Foundation don’t go into the kind of depth that APP or PoemTalk do, listening is still a good way to find new poets, explore a few poems in a little more depth than a solitary reading, and always fun, I think, to hear poets read their own work, and to listen to poetry being explored and unpicked a little. You can also pick up copies of each of the poems discussed at the website, which is here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/5338

If you haven’t come across the Poetry Foundation before, I recommend it.  I think that their database of poets and poems (particularly American poets and poetry) is probably the most extensive on the internet - certainly the most extensive and valuable that I’ve come across.