Episode 31

Back to the poetry!

I received my first fan mail this week, I've had submissions in the past, people asking to be put on the show, but this was the first time anyone has written with nice things to say! When I say nice, I was described as 'Poetry's Smashy n' Nicey", not to bad in my book!

One of the criticisms was the amount of interviews, and a lack of poetry on the podcast, and I'm first to admit that sometimes the shows are a bit balanced in favour of the interview, and it's something I'm going to address in future interviews, and try to get as much poetry as interview.

That does mean that I have still many hours of interview to get out of the next couple of months!

So why have I gone trawling through my back catalogue for this show? Joe Hakim, originally sent me loads of material late last year and at the time I found I could only squeeze one of his poems on to a show, and rather than split up the rest of his material, I thought I'd hold on to it and save it for a show of it's own. Three short Poems from Joe, but three poems that throw up images of not just Hull, but life across middle England as we have come to know it thorough the pages of the Sun and the Star. Joe fills his poems with characters that are no further away than your garden gate, and they jump in your face forcing you to recognise, not just them, but your own reflection too.

The first poet on the show is Ingrid Andrew, who submitted this piece to me a while ago. Ingrid is a fellow south London poet, and this piece, When Woman, is epic. A long poem broken by a musical number which acts to emphasise the theme of the poem, and even though it may be seen to break the resonance of the poem, only works to hammer home the importance of the whole theme. I can't wait to sit down with Ingrid and record some more poetry.

Episodes 29 and 30

Missed blogging about the last two episodes.

29 sees us going back to doing a bit of poetry, with poems from Graham Buchan, Naomi Woodis, Kaamil Ahmed and Maria Slovvakova. I've been doing so many interviews recently, I'd forgotten just how much poetry is needed to fill half an hour!

Someone mentioned recently when I was asked about the number of listeners I have - There are about 150 subscribers and I estimate another 100-150 people who listen on the web page only. I mentioned that I was a little disappointed with the numbers, as I'd like thousands, but they said imagine if I was running a physical weekly event and was getting 100 people turning up for it... that's like soap opera numbers!!!

Episode 30 - and back to the interviews. Firstly let me apologise for the quality of this episode - my new recorder's first use, and I've not quite got the settings right - I was using 'conference' setting and picking everything in the room up - including Niall O'Sullivan's dancing!

I have to admit I have one more interview like that - with Tim Wells, coming up in an episode shortly, but at least James Byrne is clear.

James is the editor of The Wolf Magazine, which as of issue 17 is now square bound, extra pages, and more of a quality literary magazine than before, if that's possible. James is not only editor of the mag, but runs workshops, classes, and works as a poetry translator for SOAS.

As an editor, I ask James about what it takes to get published in his magazine, and his helpful words of advice are essential listening to all poets.