Louise reads poems

I don't know much of Plath's writing and I found this in an anthology a few years ago and marked the page. The poem, like the mushrooms it describes, is both undemonstrative and yet insistent. There a...

14 Sep 20201min

A friend gave me a collection of Elizabeth Jennings' poetry recently and it fell open on Night Sister as I was flipping through. First, it made me think of the work I did with the contributors to Thes...

24 Aug 20201min

I was looking out at an overcast, rainy day and found As KIngfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The colours alone transported me out of the greyness in the room and I had to read it. More, t...

27 Jul 20201min

I bought Raymond Carver's All of Us on the strength of one poem and haven't properly explored it yet. I picked it up and chose Soda Crackers - it tugged at me. When I head myself reading it as a mono...

13 Jul 202057s

I love repetition in poems and you'll hear it almost immediately in this one by Carole Satyamurti. I chose it almost accidentally - earlier I browsed one of my favourite collections to see which po...

6 Jul 202046s

I found a copy of Short of Breath, a poetry collection by Vivien Jones, in a second hand bookshop and passed over Cold Snap at first. It wasn't until I read it aloud that I realised its sounds and rh...

29 Jun 20201min

I love the alliteration and the percussion in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - it just cries out to be read aloud. Listen for repeated sounds not just at the beginning of the words, but on the first...

22 Jun 20201min

My friend Ash sent me a poem about biscuits and, it being Friday afternoon and being in need of a diversion, I recorded it. Enjoy! And maybe go make a cup of tea and find a packet of biscuits ...

29 Mai 20201min