today is the last day I'll be doing interviews for the next six weeks. My wedding is rapidly approaching and I need some time to prepare !
Today I'm squeezing in three poets Alan Buckley, Agnes Meadowes and Phillip Herbert which should keep me out of trouble!
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Poetry Library Collection
As you may know, I usually record my interviews at the South Bank Centre, Royal Festival Hall.
Permission to record there has been granted by the South Bank Centre Press Office, with the aid of the staff at the Poetry Library. In exchange for that I will be donating copies of the Podcast, on CD, to the library. A very fair exchange.
Being a stickler for making sure I've got everything in place before I do anything - it's taken me nearly six months since agreeing with the Librarian, to actually start burning discs! - I'm half way through them today, and will have 30 of the 47 episodes in the Library from next Saturday.
It feels like a big step forward for the podcast - knowing that there will be a permanent record of the poetry that this show has produced, available for anyone to listen.
Why is the Librarian interested in the podcast? Chris McCabe (a fantastic poet in his own right) has an interest in poetry ephemera - starting with the pamphlets and newsletters produced by the surrealists in the early parts of the 20th century.
Podcasting isn't much different, throwaway recordings for the early part of the twenty first century - and I suppose some of it is worthwhile preserving.
Permission to record there has been granted by the South Bank Centre Press Office, with the aid of the staff at the Poetry Library. In exchange for that I will be donating copies of the Podcast, on CD, to the library. A very fair exchange.
Being a stickler for making sure I've got everything in place before I do anything - it's taken me nearly six months since agreeing with the Librarian, to actually start burning discs! - I'm half way through them today, and will have 30 of the 47 episodes in the Library from next Saturday.
It feels like a big step forward for the podcast - knowing that there will be a permanent record of the poetry that this show has produced, available for anyone to listen.
Why is the Librarian interested in the podcast? Chris McCabe (a fantastic poet in his own right) has an interest in poetry ephemera - starting with the pamphlets and newsletters produced by the surrealists in the early parts of the 20th century.
Podcasting isn't much different, throwaway recordings for the early part of the twenty first century - and I suppose some of it is worthwhile preserving.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
What it takes to put a podcast together
I'm a life long Apple Mac user, have been since I first used a ][e in school in 1981 - admittedly that was to play defender and some helicopter rescue game - but it was my first taste of computers - that year I talked my parents into buying a ZX Spectrum for me to have at home -and I think it was a £300 investment that has really paid off.
Back to the podcast - I use a Cannon Digital Dictaphone and a lapel mic to record my interviews - ok maybe my voice isn't picked up too well but it's enough to have a clear recording of the artist - if the background noise is low enough - outside it finds it very hard to make a clear recording - but I conduct all my recordings at the Royal Festival Hall so have a great indoor space to record in.
I usually spend about and hour and a half with the poets on a Saturday morning, over coffee and croissants, then get them to perform their poetry - I'm looking for about ten minutes of material to put out - so I try and record for fifteen twenty minutes.
The interview itself - I have a set of questions, which really form a guideline for the interview - in which I ask the poet to describe how they got started, what and who are their influences, and how they write and edit their work.
This usually takes about forty minutes,
I like to have a bit of a safety net of recordings, and I have about twelve weeks worth of material that I can put out - which means it can take twelve weeks from recording an interview before it goes out on the net.
On the Sunday I sit down at my Mac and transfer the recordings to the hard-drive - the Cannon produces a .WAV file which I convert to a .MP3 using software called Switch and Flip 4 Mac. I launch Garageband and drop the files into a basic track I've created with the music from Lyman Mediros and the Lower Level, and the ident from the Association of Poetry Podcasters as a intro and outro. Then I play through the recording, editing out any mistakes, coughs, things the poet wants removing, striping it down to the time limit I'm looking for - I've set a constraint of 30 minutes for the show, and cut down any sprawling interviews to that - or make a decision to put them out over two episodes.
I usually alternate an interview show with a poetry show, putting out the poetry of the interviewee the episode before their interview. I fill the rest of those shows with poetry that has either been emailed to me, sent by CD or from a CD I've bought from the artist at their performances.
The thirty minute limit for the show means I can't put out as much as I'd like to in an episode, but it does mean I have to be tight with my edits, and my choices of artist that appear.
In the end I spend about eight hours at the weekend recording and editing the thirty minute show that you hear - I hope it shows!
Back to the podcast - I use a Cannon Digital Dictaphone and a lapel mic to record my interviews - ok maybe my voice isn't picked up too well but it's enough to have a clear recording of the artist - if the background noise is low enough - outside it finds it very hard to make a clear recording - but I conduct all my recordings at the Royal Festival Hall so have a great indoor space to record in.
I usually spend about and hour and a half with the poets on a Saturday morning, over coffee and croissants, then get them to perform their poetry - I'm looking for about ten minutes of material to put out - so I try and record for fifteen twenty minutes.
The interview itself - I have a set of questions, which really form a guideline for the interview - in which I ask the poet to describe how they got started, what and who are their influences, and how they write and edit their work.
This usually takes about forty minutes,
I like to have a bit of a safety net of recordings, and I have about twelve weeks worth of material that I can put out - which means it can take twelve weeks from recording an interview before it goes out on the net.
On the Sunday I sit down at my Mac and transfer the recordings to the hard-drive - the Cannon produces a .WAV file which I convert to a .MP3 using software called Switch and Flip 4 Mac. I launch Garageband and drop the files into a basic track I've created with the music from Lyman Mediros and the Lower Level, and the ident from the Association of Poetry Podcasters as a intro and outro. Then I play through the recording, editing out any mistakes, coughs, things the poet wants removing, striping it down to the time limit I'm looking for - I've set a constraint of 30 minutes for the show, and cut down any sprawling interviews to that - or make a decision to put them out over two episodes.
I usually alternate an interview show with a poetry show, putting out the poetry of the interviewee the episode before their interview. I fill the rest of those shows with poetry that has either been emailed to me, sent by CD or from a CD I've bought from the artist at their performances.
The thirty minute limit for the show means I can't put out as much as I'd like to in an episode, but it does mean I have to be tight with my edits, and my choices of artist that appear.
In the end I spend about eight hours at the weekend recording and editing the thirty minute show that you hear - I hope it shows!
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Workshops
I spent the weekend work-shopping a poetry event, and it was a real eye opener. One of the things I was most impressed with was the introduction of a commercial advisor who gave a more business like advice to what is essentially an event run by artists.
I was there to give advice on podcasting, and got some great recordings for a future show. It also highlighted some shortcomings of my podcasting skills - I need to have a bit more preparation of materials, consistency of questioning and more of a vision of where I want to go with the podcast.
I was there to give advice on podcasting, and got some great recordings for a future show. It also highlighted some shortcomings of my podcasting skills - I need to have a bit more preparation of materials, consistency of questioning and more of a vision of where I want to go with the podcast.
Saturday, 23 August 2008
interview with Heather Taylor
A great interview today with Heather. A Canadian poet, or rather a canadian, who has discovered her poetry vibe on arrival in London.
Following on from the interview with Sid Bose last week Hearher also brings elements of her stage training to her poetry. Character is important to her and it comes across in her poems, filled with people who just climb out of the page and sit with you while you read. Check out Red in her Tall Lighthouse collection "Horizon & Back"
Heathers interview won't air until December which I promise you will bring a little bit of a Canadian summer to the dreariest of months!
Following on from the interview with Sid Bose last week Hearher also brings elements of her stage training to her poetry. Character is important to her and it comes across in her poems, filled with people who just climb out of the page and sit with you while you read. Check out Red in her Tall Lighthouse collection "Horizon & Back"
Heathers interview won't air until December which I promise you will bring a little bit of a Canadian summer to the dreariest of months!
Saturday, 16 August 2008
Episode 43 - Roddy Lumsden and Annie Freud
I kind of feel that I'm hitting some pinacle of poetry here with this weeks podcast - two of the most respected poets on the London scene on the same show - if you were going to see these two live, tickets would have sold out long ago!
From last weeks interview with Roddy, we have two poems of his from Super Try Again, his latest book from Donut Press ( buy his book here ).
Roddy's delivery is smooth, musical and like some sort of Scottish Siren, pulling you in to crash on his rocks.
Complementing Roddy's performance is Annie Freud, her first collection out last year, Annie reads mostly from The Best Man That Ever Was ( available from Picador here ) and finishes the set with the title poem from her book - what I love most about Annie's performance is the detail and preamble for each of her poems - the listener is brought right in to her life, into the titbits and ephemera of Annie's world. My favourite image is the story Annie tells of falling asleep on an atlas of the world - Annie is an Atlas of poetry, supporting the sky above us, all I can say is listen with pleasure.
From last weeks interview with Roddy, we have two poems of his from Super Try Again, his latest book from Donut Press ( buy his book here ).
Roddy's delivery is smooth, musical and like some sort of Scottish Siren, pulling you in to crash on his rocks.
Complementing Roddy's performance is Annie Freud, her first collection out last year, Annie reads mostly from The Best Man That Ever Was ( available from Picador here ) and finishes the set with the title poem from her book - what I love most about Annie's performance is the detail and preamble for each of her poems - the listener is brought right in to her life, into the titbits and ephemera of Annie's world. My favourite image is the story Annie tells of falling asleep on an atlas of the world - Annie is an Atlas of poetry, supporting the sky above us, all I can say is listen with pleasure.
can actors recite poetry?
Well, I suppose i'm about to find out. I'm just about to sit down with Sid Bose, a poet I met a few months ago doing a Reading for The Wolf magazine. Sid is trained as an actor and brings a lot of his talents to the performance of his own poetry. I think I'll ask him how he interprets others poetry and what lessons a non acting poet can bring to their text that an actor will gain insight from.
There's a big argument in the poets on fire forum along these lines and the conclusion there is that actors can't read poetry as the poet is unable to notate their poem to include accent and rythmn.
I wonder if there us anything poetry can learn from musical notation?
There's a big argument in the poets on fire forum along these lines and the conclusion there is that actors can't read poetry as the poet is unable to notate their poem to include accent and rythmn.
I wonder if there us anything poetry can learn from musical notation?
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