Poetry Says

I first spoke to Sydney poet Louise Carter about Luke Davies two years ago. Since then we’ve talked imposter syndrome and had many a cathartic poetry-related chat away from the mic. This time around, we dive deeper into Davies’ work, looking at Totem and Interferon Psalms from new angles.

I stumbled on J.D. McClatchy’s Late Night Ode very much by chance, but now it feels essential to me. It turns out it’s a Horatian ode about getting older and letting go (or attempting to). Show notes Horace IV i. W.H. Auden reads In Memory of W.B. Yeats Alice Oswald reads from Memorial Homer’s Odyssey by Simon … Continue reading "Ep 79. A Horatian Ode for gin drinkers"

What more can I say? Having this chat was a long-held dream come true. Listen as poet and novelist Lisa Gorton puts Moore’s poetic career in a broader context, discusses what libraries should really be doing with the poetry books they throw out, and what it’s like to make the final calls on a ‘Best’ … Continue reading "Ep 78. Lisa Gorton on Marianne Moore"

At the end of May I had the chance to spend a full six days away from home at a writing retreat, working on poems. Here’s what I want to tell you about the things that became clear – about writing and not writing – while I was there. Show notes Commonplace Ep 48. Poets … Continue reading "Ep 77. Notes from a writing retreat"

Latin American poetry is so vast and overwhelming! I don’t know where to start! Yep. But Will Druce is here with a rough guide to Federico García Lorca, a look at where his writing intersects with Frank O’Hara and Rimbaud, and plenty else to say about writing and reading outside English. We also chat about building and … Continue reading "Ep 76. Will Druce with your Lorca 101"

Which poet is there for you when life gets particularly strange? Sorry Rumi, but it’s not you. Lately I’ve had cause to go back to Gertrude Stein and her beautifully strange poem Christian Bérard. Show notes Stein reading from Christian Bérard Let us describe A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass If I Told Him, A Completed … Continue reading "Ep 75. When Rumi is absolutely no help"

Geraldine Burrowes came to poetry later in life from the world of visual art. We met in her beautiful apartment and talked about two poets who were influential in that transition – Michael Farrell and Claire Gaskin – along with what went into making her book pick up half under, out from the Rabbit Poets series. … Continue reading "Ep 74. Geraldine Burrowes on Michael Farrell and Claire Gaskin"

It’s a good day when you get to sit around a table with some friends and write something surprising. Here’s what happened when we tried our hands at cut-ups, erasure and the villanelle. Show notes Inside a poetry workshop with Benjamin Dodds and Mran-Maree Laing. Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott

Anupama Pilbrow is co-editor at The Suburban Review and the author of Body Poems, just out from Vagabond Press. We recorded this conversation as Anupama was packing boxes on the eve of leaving Melbourne. Over tea we covered everything from her thoughts on moving to a new city to how poetry relates to pure mathematics, Kamala … Continue reading "Ep 72. Anupama Pilbrow on the moments in between"

What happened when I had four days off and decided to try to write a long poem. Show notes The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry How to write a sestina

Sitting at Claire Gaskin’s kitchen table, I finally got to thank her for the ideas and poems she shared at a reading at Some Velvet Morning back in 2013, including Gig Ryan’s If I Had a Gun. We also talked about specificity, gender in poetry, writing from emotion, and took a good long look at Gig’s … Continue reading "Ep 70. Claire Gaskin on Gig Ryan"

Ern Malley continues to be a made up person. So why did we celebrate his birthday this week? And why do Australian poets keep talking about him? I take a run at our most infamous poetry hoax. Show notes Everything you could ever want to know about Ern in Jacket 17.

I still remember buying a copy of Ali Alizadeh’s Ashes in the Air and the immediate effect the book had on me. In this interview Ali looks back on what it was like to write that book and talks about aspects of writing poetry in Australia today including power, influence, hype, popularity – and hope. … Continue reading "Ep 68. Ali Alizadeh on power, influence, anxiety and hope"

Time and I are not friends. Sometimes we have massive fights. Usually I don’t win. But poems help. Show notes The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor Morgan Parker on Commonplace In Italy by Derek Walcott Antilamentation by Dorianne Laux

If you’re a fan of Chat 10 Looks 3 (which you should be) you’ll enjoy this episode. Prolific poet and reviewer Maggie Ball and I catch up to talk about what we read over the summer and what we hope to achieve writing-wise in 2018. We also casually start up a Michael Farrell reading circle. … Continue reading "Ep 66. What we read last summer"

We’re back for 2018! I’m starting the year off by going way back to 19th Century Japan and Tachibana Akemi’s Poems of Solitary Delights, then following that thread over to Robert Creeley’s ‘Talking’:

Stuart Cooke’s Opera is one of those books that’s changed my understanding of what a poetry collection can do. (It also includes one of my favourite poems, An Overcast Day in Another Part of the World.) In this interview I get the chance to nerd out with Stuart about how he wrote Opera and the … Continue reading "Ep 64. Stuart Cooke’s Opera"

Talking with Ed Tato reminded me how many rooms there are to discover in the house of poetry. We go from Ulysses to Kansas to a workshop with Mary Karr, wondering about categorisation, why certain writing resonates, and returning to the fact that some poems demand to be spoken aloud. Show notes Early Occult Memory … Continue reading "Ep 63. Ed Tato on poems that must be spoken"

After finally getting up to read at Owl and Cat, I was lucky enough to have Amanda Anastasi around to chat about all things open mic, the highs and lows of being a poetry gig convenor and her own approaches to getting something down on the page (in between gigs). Show notes The Owl and … Continue reading "Ep 62. Amanda Anastasi on poetry at the mic"

Dave Drayton joins me to chat about his recent book P(oe)Ms, the role of constraint, productive and preventative barriers in writing, and some of the poets who inspired him to try new things when performing his work. We also get into the fraught area of ‘networking’ in the poetry community – is it all just about … Continue reading "Ep 61. Dave Drayton on PMs and poetry demo tapes"