The Two-Way Poetry Podcast

Matt Black on Edward Lear's poem 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' and his own poem 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and the Turtles of Fun'

In this episode I talk to Matt Black about writing his own versions of 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' by Edward Lear.

Matt reflects on when he first heard 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' as a child. He then goes on to talk in depth about the task of creating a homage to this 'iconic' piece of work. He discusses the intricacies of the poem - how it uses all sorts of different techniques to make it a memorable piece of work. He throws about the idea of what it means to be a nonsense poem. He reflects on the notion of using landscape as a safe space to explore possibly difficult themes. He talks a little bit about Lear's background and what possibly brought him to write this enigmatic poem.

He then goes on to delve into his own prequel and sequel - grouped together as 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and the Turtles of Fun'. He talks about the triggering incident that led to him taking on such a task (an encounter with a stuffed owl in a museum's store). He reflects on how in the two different versions of 'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' he has written the first narrative must lead up to the boat (of the original poem) but the second poem is 'un-moored' from the route-map of the classic work. He can explore all sorts of complicated themes - the break-up of a marriage, infidelity and so on, but still create it within the framework of a 'children's' poem.  He reflects on the qualities of the poetic language itself and the references in the poem to Brid, other animals, and pop references too.  Finally, he talks about performing the work in schools - a 'nonsense poem for a nonsense curriculum'.

Matt Black lives in Leamington Spa. His most recent collection is Fishing Dentures Out of Mashed Potato (Upside Down, 2025) which includes poems on various themes, including getting older, looking after elderly parents, the joys of domesticity, lanyards, dogs and knees. This is a fund-raiser for Myton Hospices - £5 per copy - and he is currently available for entertaining readings from the book.  Since being Derbyshire Poet Laureate (2011-2013), he has successfully completed over 25 commissions, with poems on 15 benches, 20 milestones, a large glass panel and in exhibitions and publications. Other recent works include a collection of poems about dogs, Sniffing Lamp-posts by Moonlight (2017), which became an Edinburgh Fringe show, and the tour of his play about floods in Cumbria, The Storm Officer. He is currently Lillington Poet Laureate, Chair of Cubbington and Lillington Environmental Action Now (CLEAN), and a very proud grand-dad.  www.matt-black.co.uk

Copies of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and the Turtles of Fun can be purchased here.

You can follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes. This is the last podcast of series two. Look out for updates about series three later in 2025.

Thanks for listening!

 

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (the Prequel) The Owl and the Pussy-cat went for tea With a parakeet in the park. Owl said politely, “It doesn’t delight me, This hunting of mice after dark.”    The Cat said “Life in the city is mean; We’re squibbling youth away. Let’s go to the sea. Let’s quit this mad scene.” So they cycled to Brid for the day, The day, The day, So they cycled to Brid for the day.   On arrival in Brid, they met a great squid With a sailor who told them a tale Of a mermaid and man, who had met in Japan, And lived in the mouth of a whale. “I like it here,” said Owl on the pier, While the Cat, with a grin, went “Miao”. They stayed for a week. They played hide and seek, And the Owl jumped over a cow, A cow, A cow, And the Owl jumped over a cow.   The waves, they were lapping, blue butterflies flapping, “O guys, you should stay for a while. We’ve striped candyflosses, and rides on the hosses. It’s wicked whatever your style.” Said Cat, “Life’s absurd. Let us sail, dear Bird, To the land where the Bong-tree gleams.” In his crocodile coat, Sailor lent them a boat,   And said “Steer by the star of your dreams, Your dreams, Your dreams.” He said “Steer by the star of your dreams.”   The Owl and the Pussy-Cat The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, “O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?” They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose, His nose, His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.” So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.   The Owl and the Pussy-Cat  (the Sequel) The Owl and the Pussy-cat lived the dream For a year and a half at least. They built a chalet, and pranced in a ballet On the beach with the Jumbly Beast.   Till Pussy-cat met the Turtles of Fun, Left Owl by the frumious foam, Who sat in the sun, cried “What have I done? O and why did I leave my sweet home, Sweet home, Sweet home? O and why did I leave my sweet home?” Now six months have gone, and Owl’s signing on; Cat lives with a turtle called Ted. In the Bong-tree bazaar, Owl strums his guitar, Singing “Pussy, my marriage is dead.” But Cat, in surprise, says “Owl, do be wise, For love is a runcible fruit.”             In only two years, Owl turned all his tears To tunes with a dog on the flute, The flute, The flute, To tunes with a dog on the flute. The whiskery walrus and octopus chorus Heard songs, like the Dong’s, on the sand. “Your tunes are so beautiful, groovy and hootable!” Begged Walrus, “O please join our band.” Owl pondered and said, “Yes, but only if Ted Can play drums and the didgeridoo.” They made Number One, with the Turtles of Fun, Singing “Life is a crazy canoe, Canoe, Canoe,” Singing “Life is a crazy canoe.”

Vicky Morris on Hannah Lowe's poem 'Fist', Georgie Woodhead's poem 'When my Uncle Stood at the Top of the Office Block Roof’, and her own poem ‘Sea Road’

In this episode, I talk to Vicky Morris about Hannah Lowe’s poem ‘Fist’, Georgie Woodhead’s poem ‘When my Uncle Stood at the Top of the Office Block Roof’ and her own poem ‘Sea Road’.

Vicky begins the podcast by talking about how she first came across Hannah Lowe’s work and what appealed about to her about the poetry - the voice (plain style), the subject matter and control of the material.  Vicky discusses what she learnt from Hannah after being mentored by the poet as an Arvon/Jerwood mentee. She delves into the ideas of utilising poems for ‘teaching’: why choose a particular piece to show to young poets who are learning the craft?

Vicky talks about the ‘cinematic quality’ of the poem ‘Fist’, how it uses specific details to draw the reader in to the situation at hand. She focuses on Lowe's uses enjambment to create particular effects in the poem. Vicky talks about technique at length - and how the craft in this piece can be used to help students think about writing about their own lived experiences.

Vicky then goes on to explore Georgie Woodhead’s poem ‘When my Uncle Stood at the Top of the Office Block Roof’ - how Georgie took Hannah’s piece as a a starting point for her own portrayal of a high-risk situation. She talks about Georgie’s adoption of metaphors as a means by which to illuminate the Uncle’s (and narrator’s) state of mind.

Finally, Vicky reads and ‘unpacks' her own poem ‘Sea Road’.  She examines the choices she made in the poem around the adoption of a ‘long line’ structure and the use of triplets, how she ramps up the tension through telling details. She spends some time talking about the ending and how she redrafted those final lines until she was happy with the conclusion. She goes on to discuss and illuminate other poems in her pamphlet collection, including the poem ‘Lesley’.

You can find a version of Hannah Lowe’s poem ‘Fist’ here, on the Poetry Archive website (with Hannah reading the poem herself). You can also read the version eventually published in Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) here, on the Poetry International website.

You can read Georgie Woodhead’s poem ‘When my Uncle Stood at the Top of the Office Block Roof’ here. You can find out more about Georgie’s collection Takeaway (Smith/Doorstop, 2020) here.

Vicky Morris is a British/Welsh poet, mentor, editor and creative educator from north Wales. Her debut pamphlet If All This Never Happened (Southword Editions, 2021) was a winner of the Munster Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition and shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet in the Saboteur Awards 2021. Her poems have appeared widely in magazines and journals, including: The Rialto, Poetry Review, Mslexia, Poetry Wales and The North. Vicky has placed in various competitions including first in the Prole Laureate Competition 2019 and the Aurora Prize 2020. She was shortlisted for the Mairtin Crawford Award for Poetry 2022 and highly commended in the Liverpool Poetry Prize 2022.
 
Vicky mentors poets at all stages and is the editor of seven anthologies of poetry and fiction by emerging young writers. For the last 14 years, she has built development opportunities for writers aged 14 to 30, founding Hive in 2016. Through Hive, she has mentored many emerging young poets who’ve received accolades such as the New Poets Prize and the Foyle Young Poets Award. Vicky received a Sarah Nulty Award in 2019 for her writer development work and was an Arvon/Jerwood mentee 19/20. www.vickymorris.co.uk

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

Sea Road
(Summer of ’85)

Remember the night you and Lorn walked back this way,
past the jangling cluster of amusement arcades, the bingo caller’s
muffled boom on the mic, the slot machine beeps and flashing lights,

then the long quiet stretch of Sea Road. Remember the man
who stopped his car, not once but twice, pretended to fiddle
behind a torch-lit bonnet, and you saw his open fly,

his hand offering up his cock like a fairground prize
to two young girls in beach dresses.  Lorn still chattering,
heedless of the whisper in your ten-year-old throat,

and you daren't look back or turn off the road.
Then up ahead, you see a shape in the dark, that same car
waiting, bonnet raised, headlights off, engine ticking,

the dim glow of torchlight. But this time, he's upped
his game. And now you are running, Lorn pulling you
down this long, empty road, running like the dark

is closing in behind you, like it's stroking the backs 
of your legs, running from the edge of something sharp
and faceless, until you burst into the hall, gasping, out of breath. 

Mum shouting — What, what is it!? 
Both of you mute, moving along a road somewhere.
The dark of a car boot, your mouths gagged shut.

 

Steve Ely on Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns and poems from his own sequence ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ and his poem ‘Filth as thou art’ from his collection Eely

In this episode, I talk to Steve Ely about Geoffrey Hill’s collection Mercian Hymns and a number of poems from his sequence ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ and the poem ‘Filth as thou art’ from his most recent collection Eely.

Steve talks about the importance of Hill's work as an 'outlier' poet in the Modernist tradition. He focuses on the form that Mercian Hymns takes - the 'versets' that he himself adopted in his first published book Englaland. He examines three poems in depth - the first and third pieces (that set the tone of the work), and the penultimate poem in the sequence.  He draws out various moments when the history of Offa 'bleeds into' the biography of Hill as it is represented in the sequence. Steve digs deep into the word choices that Hill makes, and the allusive qualities of the text.

He then discusses at length the historical background to his poem 'The Battle of Brunanburh'. He explores the notion that this battle took place in South Yorkshire - and goes on to talk about the various sources that commented on this pivotal moment in history. He reflects on three poems in particular in the sequence - poems I, II and XII.  He describes how he used Mercian Hymns as a template for his own practice of melding historical timelines together. He discusses notions of class and masculinity through the framework of this historical overview. Finally he focuses on the 'dramatic' design of his latest collection Eely - how the book fits together over the course of nearly two-hundred pages.  He goes on to think about the evolution of 'Filth as thou art', touching on the history of the Fens in doing so.  He explores the trajectory of the work - how one idea or reference leads to another thought or image, culminating in his own manifestation as the 'staggeringly-gifted child' which is a nod back to Hill's representation of himself in Mercian Hymns. He ends the conversation by discussing jeans brands from the 1970s - and in particular the desire of owning a pair Falmers.

You can find various printings of Mercian Hymns out there. I first read the sequence in Geoffrey Hill's Collected Poems, published by Penguin Books in 1985.

Steve Ely is a poet, novelist, biographer and teacher of creative writing. He has written several books or pamphlets of poetry, most recently Eely (Longbarrow Press, April 2024), Orasaigh (Broken Sleep Books, August 2024) and an edited anthology, Apocalyptic Landscape (Valley Press, October 2024) . He’s currently working on a critical work, Ted Hughes’s Expressionism, a novel entitled The Quoz, and an infinitely expanding, limitless poetic sequence, Terra Incognito.

'The Battle of Brunanburh' can be found in Steve Ely's second book of poetry Englaland (Smokestack Books, 2015).

'Filth as thou art' features in the final section of Steve's book Eely (Longbarrow Press, 2024) - known as Eelysium -  which you can read more about here.

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

Here Steve's poem:

Filth as thou art

The life-or death prerogative power
of Ivan Karamazov's Master of Game,
wolfhounds loosed at the slipped boys scut,
hauled down in the snow and torn in the jaws
of his ululating mother;
                                             gold-rush garimpeiros,
lopping the heads of the Haxi Yanomami,
something about a stolen hammock,
their cleansing from the commons;
                                                                shish kebab
paedos, pimping and raping unlooked-after
AirMax scrubbers - panga wielding paki
ninnies, watermelon smiles.
                                                     Brit White Chief
getting out of hand with his tax-payer funded
Brit White Bird. Well, asked Ivan. What does he deserve?
Boris stopped spaffing and thought for a sec.
To be shot, he muttered. But already his mind
was somewhere else

                                     hunt ball interns,
indigenous schoolies on cigs and free dinners,
wearing Joop and 9 carat Yanomami lip-plates,
the stringbulb flat above Booze n News, choc
klet starfish dripping with garlic mayo -
we're having a gang bang, we're having
a ball, Rita, Sue and PetSu too, Leeds Tiffs
with Sav and Jayne MacDonald: inner sense
doubtful - at that age, from that estate,
at that time in the morning, with the eel fishers
baiting their creels in the boatyard,
eights sweeping the river from Kulmhof
to the Wash, Spinnefix spinning his little white house,
the black band of Florian Geyer. Shot
in the beams of the Rothermere staff car,
which he smashed as he fled, a hole in his head,
to the lays of Ness Ziona

                                             defacing the fly-leaf
Brer Rabbit's a Rascal, 1974:
thank God I was born alive, not dead;
human, not an animal; a boy, not a girl;
English, not foreign; and Yorkshire, South Kirkby,
the Wimpeys - RULE OK! - scoring his hat-tricks,
wheelying his Chopper, 100% on the test,
this Prospero of Osgoldcross, Ariel of Frickley Park:
Kirkby rec Caliban, proud as Punch
in his catalogue Falmers, boss-eyed, club-footed,
man or fish, legged with fins for arms.
The meanest, poorest and commonest sort,
that serve for the profit of conjurors,
and bleed on Dagon's altars.
                                                      Beacons ring
the changes. Bog-bull thumps the level.
Lads rip the pegs on Whelpmore Fen.
Commoner's muck.

 

Abbi Flint on Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's poem 'Little Peach' and her own poem 'Cow Low Bowl (650 - 700 AD)'

In this episode, I talk to Abbi Flint about Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s poem ‘Little Peach’ and her own poem ‘Cow Low Bowl (650 - 700 AD)’.

Abbi talks about the connections between her work as an archaeologist and her creative processes as a poet. She explores the idea of fragments - whether they be finds or fragmentary and non-linear details - as a way in to thinking about associations between her various practices.  She talks about the creative skills that Burnett displays in her fashioning of a poetic voice that can embody other-than-human elements. She then goes on to discuss at length Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s project that evolved into her collection Twelve Words for Moss, and how ‘Little Peach’ fits into the overall design of the book. Abbi highlights the sensory qualities and playfulness of the language in Burnett’s poem, the wonder. Abbi also mentions Clare Shaw's peat bog poems as a way of understanding Burnett's work too. Abbi then goes on to explore the sound and sense of her own poem ‘Cow Low Bowl’ (650 - 700 AD)'. She draws on her development as a writer, pinpointing the Continuing Bonds project (see below) as a starting point for drawing together archeology and poetry. She then goes on to talk about how she gained creative inspiration from the Thomas Bateman antiquarian collection held at Western Park Museum in Sheffield in another cross-disciplinary project she was involved in. She talks about the layered approach she makes in 'Cow Low Bowl' - bringing together different texts and images to create this work.  She draws on the tactile quality of the bowl as a way into thinking about the object.  She talks about writing into the space that 'we will never know', and the archeological imagination. She goes on to discuss the possibility of a first complete collection of creative work, and what texts might be included in the book.

Abbi Flint is a researcher and poet, who works across archaeology, history and the environmental humanities. Her poems have been published in a range of online and print journals, including Under the Radar, Spelt, Atrium, Reliquiae, Popshot Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and Interpreters House.

Abbi mentions two projects, led by Professor Melanie Giles (University of Manchester), that she contributed poems to Vestiges and Peat: Past, Present and Future. The webpage for Vestiges contains a link to a recording of Abbi reading Cow Low Bowl, and a link to the pdf of the full Vestiges anthology.

More about the Continuing Bonds project, led by Professor Karina Croucher (University of Bradford), here: https://continuingbonds.live/teaching-materials/

The MossWorlds Project, led by Dr Anke Bernau, Dr Ingrid Hanson and Dr Aurora Fredriksen (University of Manchester), has a website here: https://mossworlds.co.uk/about-mossworlds/

The science poetry/art journal Consilience can be found here: https://www.consilience-journal.com/about

Abbi mentions a portrait of Thomas Bateman and his son sitting alongside the Cow Low Bowl. You can find a version of the image here.

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's poem, 'Little Peach', was published in the Willowherb Review and also in her book Twelve Words for Moss. You can hear her read 'Little Peach' here.

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

Cowl Low Bowl (650-700 AD)

Low bowl, sky bowl
dish that ran away with the moon
underground, understone
puddled mud above thirsty old bones
that took the sky to bed
in cloth and ash, iron and brass

Sure bowl, palm bowl
cupped by a hand
that tipped sky to cold lips
cold as a tod-fox tooth
blue as a calm sea, tender
as tilted hips that swallowed the moon

Whole bowl, restless bowl
holds the horizon between soil
and where air fell to dust
this blue is a window
between death and another death
brought to light by the spade

 

 

 

David Swann on Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' and his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer'

In this episode, I spend time with Dave Swann (on his, and his wife, Ange's allotment) as we reflect on Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' and his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer'.

In the podcast, Dave talks about meeting Tony Hoagland at a poetry reading in London.  He discusses how he got over balancing his work life and writing life by going on writing courses. He mentions how, on one of these residencies, he met the poet Mimi Khalvati who introduced him to the idea of schwa vowels, and how this made him view his poetry in a different light. He talks about the importance of description, professional noticing, and daydreaming.  He then goes on to discuss Tony Hoagland's 'plate spinning', the technical 'tight-rope act' he enacts from poem to poem. He talks at length about 'The Neglected Art of Description', how it hovers around those different points of describing detail through 'sleights of hand' and rhetorical flourishes (and Zen Buddhism).  How it can only go so far. He goes on a detour - focusing for a while on the descriptive power of Mark Doty's poem 'Two Ruined Boats'.

He then goes on to explore his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer' and the choices of language he made in this piece. What is poetry supposed to do in the world? He talks about sleights of hand in his own poetry, how and why he focuses on the film Paths of Glory, and on the case of a political prisoner (Reyhaneh Jabbari) being executed for her own beliefs. He talks at length about the technical decisions that he makes in the poem.  He explores the idea of being 'bombarded' by news and information, and how as individuals (and writers) we have to negotiate this stream of words in our lives. How do we sift out the words that are important to us? He discusses the importance of poetry in people's lives too. Finally, he explores the different (prose and poetry) collections he is currently writing for publication - including his allotment poems.

 

Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' can be found in Application for the Release from the Dream (Bloodaxe, 2015).  Dave also reads from 'Two Ruined Boats' from Mark Doty's collection Atlantis (Cape, 1996).

Dave also mentions in the podcast Hoagland's book Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft (Graywolf Press, 2006).

David Swann began his writing life as a reporter for the local newspaper in Accrington. After working in nightclubs, warehouses, and magazines in Amsterdam, he became the writer in residence in a prison.  A book based on those experiences, The Privilege of Rain (Waterloo Press, 2009) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Award.  Dave's stories and poems have been widely published and won many awards, including eleven successes at the Bridport Prize and two in The National Poetry Competition. His novella Season of Bright Sorrow (also available from Ad Hoc Fiction), won the 2021 Bath Novella-in-Flash Competition.

David's own poem, 'The Last Day of Summer', comes from his last published poetry collection, Gratitude on the Coast of Death (Waterloo Press, 2017).

You can follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

The Last Day of Summer

If the clock-radio wasn't chanting its old lament
I'd spend the summer's finale under our duvet

but the year's last light is falling, and, here, it's all war,
famine, Ebola.  And Iran has hanged Reyhaneh Jabbari.

There's a better place than this, but I can't find it
anywhere in our house, so I carry my tea

into the yard and listen while a neighbour's child
calls to her vanished cat.  'Gucci!' she cries,

on the brink of tears. 'Gucci, where are you, dear?'
The mallow's crazy bloom has dimmed now

and the sunflowers have lost interest in the sky.
I follow their hunched gaze to where indestructible snails

lumber like tanks over the paving stones, and think
of that moment in Paths of Glory when cockroaches

scuttle through a cell.  Tomorrow, when's he dead,
those things will continue to live, the condemned man

tells his jailers, unable to imagine the world
bearing his absence.  Around me: a citadel

of living spiders. They have strung their cables
over our tiny lawn.  The grass has gone on growing

and these cobwebs are thicker than I've known.
Global warming? Upstairs, the clock-radio

drones while a child's voice rises through its scales.
'Gucci,' she sings.  'Come home now, Gucci!'

Our words have travelled vast distances,
that's what I tell the kids I teach.  They have come to us

on journeys and their bags are full of secrets.
Rose, for instance. Or musk. Or path.

Or assassin.  These words are from Farsi,
words from the land that has hanged

Reyhaneh Jabbari.  For two months she was held
alone, beyond reach of lawyers and family,

and she went to her death still protecting
the name of the man who saved her

from rape by the government agent.
These are not the words of a poem

and that is not the name of a cat.  Let me sit here
with my tea and forget this winter. Send us down

the old books, containing the old worlds.
You know the ones: jasmine, shawl, peach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Hamberger on John Clare's poem 'The Field Mouse's Nest' and his own poem 'Herb Robert'

In this episode, I talk to Robert Hamberger about John Clare’s poem 'The Field Mouse’s Nest' and his own poem 'Herb Robert'.

In our conversation, Robert talks about how his art teacher introduced to him to the works of Sylvia Plath and John Clare (among others).  He discusses the 'everyday' language he uses in his poetry and how (through this 'political act') he doesn’t want to exclude his readers. He goes on to explore the idea of the sonnet - how can you find your voice inside the given ‘rules’ of the fourteen-line poem - the rhyme scheme, the weight of tradition: ‘a lovely challenge’.  Robert then elaborates on Clare’s background - his prodigious output of poetry (even when he was incarcerated) and from this reflects on how important it is to separate writing from publishing (to see them as two separate activities). Robert then discusses 'The Field Mouse's Nest'. He explores punctuated and unpunctuated versions of this sonnet, and Clare's use of dialect, reading from Seamus Heaney's essay ‘John Clare’s Prog’. He touches on the idea of Clare as an ecopoet.

He then goes on to illuminate the evolution of his memoir A Length of Road: Finding Myself in the Footsteps of John Clare from 1995 onward - and how the poem 'Herb Robert' fits into the larger scheme of the book. He talks about 'Herb Robert' as a queer poem, and from this insight, shows how the relationship between himself and Clare - and his understanding of himself developed as he drafted and redrafted the work. He then goes on to talk at length about the hold the sonnet has had on him over his writing life, and how this poem, in particular, fitted in as one of his 'form-testing' poems.

You can read John Clare's Northborough Sonnets (mentioned in the podcast) in this edition from Carcanet Press.  Seamus Heaney's essay on John Clare comes from his collection of essays The Redress of Poetry (Faber, 2002). Here is a version of 'The Field Mouse's Nest' from the Poetry Archive (with 'cesspools' instead of 'sexpools' in the final line).

Robert Hamberger has been shortlisted and highly commended for Forward prizes, appearing in the Forward Book of Poetry 2020. He won The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023 and has been awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. His poetry has featured as the Guardian Poem of the Week and in British, American, Irish and Japanese anthologies. He has published six poetry pamphlets and four full-length collections. Blue Wallpaper (Waterloo Press) was shortlisted for the 2020 Polari Prize. His prose memoir with poems A Length of Road: finding myself in the footsteps of John Clare was published by John Murray in 2021. His fifth collection Nude Against A Rock from Waterloo Press was published in October 2024.

You can find Robert Hamberger's website here.

You can follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

Herb Robert

What flavour of man is this, whose tips
unpeel into flowers? His arrows blossom.
Five petals top each blood-line that dips
and lifts through the breeze. I've seen him
hide by the creaky bridge where lattice-water
dabbles a trout's tail while bubbles rise.
His leaves mimic ferns, his colour
campion.  How can he be less than he is?
He lives his name. Two bulbs branch from every stem,
until I catch him taking over
the wood-side. A hundred buds swarm
their messages on the air.
If I eat his breath will it heal me?
Stroke him across my temples quietly, quietly.

 

 

 

 

 

David Harmer on Dylan Thomas's 'Poem in October' and his own poetry sequence 'White Peak Histories'

In this episode, I talk to the poet David Harmer about Dylan Thomas’s ‘Poem in October’ and his own sequence ‘White Peak Histories.’

In our conversation, David discusses his connections with Thomas. He explains why ‘Poem in October’ (and ‘late Thomas’) appeals to him in particular. He talks about the shape and feel of the poem, its aural qualities, its preoccupation with birds and the seasons. David follows Thomas from the shore and climbs high up, ending his journey looking out over the water.  He goes on to reflect on what ‘the border’ could mean in the context of this poem. David then goes on to explore the background to his poetry sequence ‘White Peak Histories’.  He thinks about the lines he can draw between his own work and Thomas’s effusive language, Thomas’s verbal ‘swagger’. He delves into the geography of the White Peak and how this feeds into its histories in terms of both leisure and labour.

David Harmer lives in Doncaster and is best known as a children’s writer with publications from McMillans Children’s Books, Frances Lincoln and recently, Small Donkey Press. A lot of his work for the Grown Ups is published in magazines. He also performs with Ray Globe as The Glummer Twins, often at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Here's a little window into David's writing for children (his book It's Behind You) from the Pan McMillan Site. And here's the details of David's most recent book from Small Donkey Press.

We mention the poetry magazine Tears in the Fence during our conversation. You can find out more about this poetry journal here.

We also mention W S Graham's poem 'The Thermal Stair' (for the painter Peter Lanyon) which you can listen to - and read - on the Poetry Archive.

Owen Sheers discusses Dylan Thomas with Matthew Paris on the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives here.

You can read Dylan Thomas's 'Poem in October' at this website.

You can follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

White Peak Histories
 
Rhienster Rock
 
Once Raenstor Crag, the haunt of ravens
hræfn; harbingers of wisdom, of slaughter,
guardians of the Duke’s old coach road
 
that twists beneath this sudden rise of limestone
where the Bradford narrows near Hollow Farm
a slow drift, thick with sedge and celandine.
 
The ravens are long-gone, no hoarse
ghost cries over burial bones or carrion chatter,
no close councils and conspiracies.
 
Shifted into tricksters and thieves,
they left their reef-knoll condemned as vermin,
an abrupt unkindness bringing despair.
 
Two shot in Youlgrave churchyard
fetched eight pennies, four birds a shilling,
held by their legs, their smashed skulls open.

 

Trackways
 
Half-lost, eroded like rumours
whispered beneath the skin of maps
 
the tracks of travellers,
pack-horse carters, cattle drovers,
cloth merchants, drifts of malt-horses
 
lie abandoned under new-sprung roads,
uprooted farms and tarmac.
 
But here at Robin Hood’s Stride, the mock-beggar’s hall
high above Bradford Dale, jumbled rocks protect
the Portway, guide it past the Nine Stones Circle
down to Broad Meadow Farm
 
where Saxon ridges rise like waves
to push the causeway
straight over the river at Hollow Bridge
then up Dark Lane.
 
The path still beats below our footfall,
it flowed before settlers on Castle Hill Ring
brewed their iron or buried their dead
in the heaped barrows and tumuli
and when we walk it
their voices clamour through the rain, eager
to point out the way ahead.
 

Portway flood, 1718
 
Winter unleashed a deluge of waters,
the ford at Alport scoured out by river-force
Bradford and Lathkill locked in a tumult
of pell-mell, white-flecked land-soak.
Monk’s Hall up to its haunches, inundated,
thick ropes of stream-melt, cattle pushed
up breakneck banking, dams burst
foaming like the mouths of dead horses.
 
A gang of carriers faced the flooded Portway.
How to travel to the north of Old Town?
How to cross this fury of water?
They tried to push through. It hurled them away,
ankles tumbled over their heads, mouths gaped,
breath failed them, limbs flailing and snatching
at quick grasps of rock, branches, horse-gear.
 
Their bales and bundles, leather goods, baubles
dragged to the mill-race, the broken wheel
reluctant to offer any hand hold. Instead they drowned
crying out for a bridge, found their souls sodden
in Derbyshire rain-drench, unprotected by ravens.
And as the waters had not yet dried from the earth
no dry ground rose to cover the corpses.

 

 

Katharine Towers on Elizabeth Bishop's poems 'Sandpiper' and 'Jerónimo's House' and her own poem 'Elizabeth Bishop's Sad Epitaph'

In this episode, poet Katharine Towers discusses Elizabeth Bishop’s poems ‘Sandpiper’ and ‘Jerónimo’s House’ and her own poem ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph.’

In the interview, Katharine explains how she went from being a prose writer to a poet in part from reading Elizabeth Bishop’s poems. She examines the qualities of Bishop’s writing through an extended reading of ‘Sandpiper’, focusing in particular on line lengths, repetitions and rhymes. Katharine highlights the three things that Bishop strived for in her work — accuracy, spontaneity and mystery which she goes on to reflect on in both 'Sandpiper' and 'Jerónimo's House'.  With regards to ‘Jeronimo’s House’, Katharine delves into her own interest in solitude when looking at this piece. She considers the idea that Jerónimo’s house is a ‘love nest’: unpicking this notion through various ways of reading this phrase. She explores the idea that Bishop (or her subjects) are often looking for a refuge or somewhere to hide away.

Katharine then goes on to illuminate her own poem ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph’. She talks about how she was inspired by Bishop’s comment to Robert Lowell about being the loneliest person who ever lived. Katharine sees this work as being a part of a sequence of first-person poems in the voice of various 'alone' women - and the ways in which aloneness was important to them.  She reflects on the poem’s slant, the language of the work, the perspective (and possible feelings) of the narrator.

There are various editions of Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Poems - the one I have is Complete Poems (Chatto, 1991).  You can read ‘Sandpiper’ here.

As well as the Bishop poems highlighted we also touch on ‘The Moose’, ‘The End of March’, ‘The Bight’ and ‘The Fish’ in our conversation.

 

Katharine Towers has published three collections with Picador, most recently Oak which was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian. The Floating Man (2010) won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and The Remedies (2016) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Observer. A fourth collection is forthcoming from Picador in 2026.
A pamphlet 'let him bring a shrubbe' exploring the life and work of the twentieth-century English composer Gerald Finzi was published by The Maker’s Press in 2023. In 2019 HappenStance Press published another pamphlet The Violin Forest.

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

 

'Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph' by Katharine Towers
 
In my fairy palace I am as lonely as I could wish. 
The ivy has grown up and over, and cosily inside
there’s just little me reading or sitting.
 
I could be on the moon or I could be 
in a Hans Christian Andersen story
or I could be a girl getting over a love affair.  
 
The first room has two beds, so one will always be empty.
The second room has two chairs, so I can see where I will sit tomorrow.
The third room has two notebooks, so there will always be blank pages.
 
At night I listen to flamenco on the radio.
As I snap my fingers and click my heels I feel tremendously 
Spanish, or I feel a sultry empty weary joy. 
 
Covering the windows are the ivy’s mathematical hands.
Daylight pokes through when it can, 
making of the worn-out floorboards a map of bright dots.