In the interview I talk about the genesis of the poem, and the role of poetic form in my writing process, as a focus for my conscious mind and a doorway to the imagination.

Daniel is a remarkable guy, who travels the world in search of inspiration, materials and craftsmanship for the bespoke jewelry he makes for his clients. And his podcast is a one-off – he not only interviews his guests but also designs a unique piece of jewelry based on the guest’s story.

Sure enough, he listened to my description of using poetic form as a way to bypass the conscious mind and open the door to imagination, and came up with a design for a new ring:

The Distraction Ring, a remarkable thumb ring designed to unlock creativity and calm the restless mind. This thoughtful piece combines artistry with function, featuring independently rotating sections that create a rhythmic clicking sound and a texture that invites tactile engagement. Daniel explores how this ring serves as a gentle prompt to redirect the conscious mind, freeing the subconscious to spark inspiration and innovation.

You can hear the interview here, listen to Dan talk about The Distraction Ring here, and get access to the jewelry designs from all the episodes here.

     

I and the other poets on the list will read our poems from 2pm onwards in The ARC Performance Hall. And we’ll find out on the day who the prize-winners are!

Thank you to the judge, Zaffar Kunial, and I look forward to meeting the other poets and hearing their work. Our poems will also be published in a prize anthology.

It should be a nice event and there are several other great readings on the same day, including the headline reading by Zaffar Kunial and Matthew Hollis. Details on the Festival website.

Do let me know if you’ll be in Winchester on the day…

     

You can read ‘Circle Charm’ and hear me read the poem here.

You can also download a pdf of the whole of Issue 6, featuring 20 poets, here.

Propel is an online magazine that exclusively features poets who have yet to publish a first collection. It’s a great magazine, founded in 2022 by Anthony Anaxagorou, with superb design that makes it a pleasure to browse online.

Every issue of the magazine has a different editor. The submission window for Episode 8, edited by Harry Josephine Giles, opens tomorrow, 1st September, for 30 days. So if you are working towards your first poetry collection, you can send him your poems via this page.

     

Ambit

‘Chrysalis’ was Commended in the 2021 Ambit Poetry Competition, judged by Kim Addonizio. The poem was published in Ambit 245.

Here is a video of me reading it at the Ambit competition event in London Fields.

Thank you Sean Eratt for the video.

iamb

Mark Antony Owen is creating an extraordinary archive of poets reading their work at iamb.

You can find me here, with the text and recordings of my poems ‘The Illusionist’ and ‘Lockdown’, as well as the opening stanzas of my translation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.

Wild Court

Wild Court is an online journal published by the English Department at King’s College London. Earlier this year they published a couple of my poetry translations:

‘The Waterspout’ – my rendering of an amazing passage from Os Lusíadas by Luis Vaz de Camões, describing a waterspout at sea, evidently from the poet’s own experience as the first Western artist to cross the equator, on a sea journey to India in the 16th Century. With thanks to Francisco Vilhena for valuable feedback on the accuracy of my translation.

‘Love’s Arrow’ – another excerpt from my translation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde; the fateful scene where Troilus first sets eyes on Criseyde:

So fared it with this fierce and headstrong knight:
Although he was a great king’s son and heir,
And rashly thought that nothing had such might
To take hold of his heart against his power,
Yet with a single look his heart caught fire,
And he who had been most in pride above
Fell suddenly most subject unto Love.

Yes, really, a diamond ring

I’m honoured that The Intrepid Wendell jewelry salon in Washington, DC has made a ring inspired by my poem ‘Waterwheels’, which was published in Brittle Star No.47.

The ring is made of white and yellow gold, with a stream of diamonds representing the ‘spangling coalescing points of light’ of the water in the poem.

You can see the ring on the bespoke work page of the Wendell website.

Thank you to Wendell and to all the editors of these journals; do check the magazines out via their websites.

     

The reading is a partnership between Poets for Ukraine and the UK Society of Authors, The Poetry Society and The Poetry School, as well as JW3, the Jewish Community Centre in London.

There will be readings online and in-person at JW3 throughout the day (UK time) this Sunday 27th March.

Headline poets include Naomi Shihab Nye, Jackie Kay, Gillian Clarke, Imtiaz Dharker, Carol Ann Duffy and Andrew Motion, with special guests including Juliet Stevenson, Jessie Ware, Meera Syal, Sophie Ward and Nick Hytner.

Ukrainian poets will be appearing on video both from the frontline and the diaspora.

I’ll be reading a couple of poems online, and I’ve been given a provisional reading slot of 11.58am UK time. This may change on the day, so if you don’t want to miss me, come a little early and check the schedule on the day!

I am raising funds for Hope and Aid Direct, a UK charity founded in 1999. Their Ukraine Appeal is ‘to provide essential aid to displaced people and people fleeing to seek safety’.

If you would like to help me raise funds for the appeal, you can:

1. Visit this page and click the yellow ‘Donate Now’ button: https://gofund.me/831ddbc8

2. Once you have entered your payment details, scroll down to the ‘Donation details’ section and choose my name from the ‘Select team member’ menu.

If you would to attend the reading, you can get a free ticket on this page: https://www.jw3.org.uk/poets-ukraine

N.b. I realise you may well have limited funds and/or you may have already donated to a Ukraine charity, so please note the reading itself is free and you are welcome to attend it whether or not you make a donation to our fundraiser.

I’m really looking forward to reading on Sunday and hearing the other poets.

It’s a small thing to do relative to the scale of the problem, but the small things are still worth doing. And I’m sure the poems will be a welcome reminder of the creative spirit, in the shadow of so much destruction.

     

Earlier this year I told you I was working on two poetry projects behind the scenes – the first was my podcast, A Mouthful of Air, which launched in the summer.

The second is a concrete poetry collaboration with stone sculptor and letter carver Sheena Devitt.

What is concrete poetry?

In concrete poetry the visual appearance and/or material embodiment of the words or letters contributes to the meaning of the work.

Examples include pattern poems like George Herbert’s Easter Wings; other creative uses of typography and layout on the page; and poems fashioned in wood, stone, fabric and other materials.

A spectacular example of the power concrete poetry is Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta garden in Scotland, where he uses stone, wood, water, ceramics and other materials to create a realm of poetry covering several acres, and incorporating the landscape and mountains as the ‘page’ on which his poems appear.

Sheena is a very talented and experienced sculptor and letter carver, so we are currently focused on creating poems carved in stone.

Elegy for Moss

Our first piece is called Elegy for Moss. Itwas exhibited over the summer and autumn in On a Knife Edge, an exhibition at the Lettering Arts Trust.

The theme of the exhibition was ‘Nature in Peril UK’, focusing on endangered species in the British Isles. From the exhibition catalogue:

The presence of moss is easily overlooked; its absence even more so. So when moss starts to go missing, it takes a trained eye to notice.

Mosses play a vital role in the development of new ecosystems. They are among the first colonisers of disturbed sites, stabilising the soil surface, retaining water and helping new plants to grow.

More and more species of moss are in decline, such as the delightfully-named fir tamarisk-moss, awl-leaved swan-neck moss, ribbed extinguisher-moss, elegant feather-moss, small mouse-tail moss, dwarf bladder-moss and hoary fringe-moss.

We like to think of this piece sitting outside, becoming covered and softened with moss over time, filling in the letters and creating a micro-habitat for new plant and animal life.

The Lettering Arts Trust does amazing work promoting the art of lettering; when I visited the exhibition in the summer I was blown away by the variety and quality of the work on show. Do check out their website and if you’re in Suffolk I highly recommend you pay them a visit.

A new way of working for me

This is an exciting new collaboration for me, an opportunity to work with a highly talented artist and take my poetry in an unexpected direction.

Although I’m a wordsmith and Sheena is an artist, it is certainly not the case that I ‘think of the words’ and she carves them!

We work together from the start of each project, sharing ideas and source material, discussing the brief (for a pitch or commission), choosing the stone (in this case supplied by S McConnell & Sons), doing research and swapping emails with text drafts and sketches, until we get to the point where we have a clear vision of the piece – in other words, both the words and the shape of the piece are a joint effort.

At that point, of course, Sheena’s skills as a sculptor and letter carver come to the fore: she rolls up her sleeves and gets to work, while I sit back and marvel at the images she shares of the piece taking shape, step by painstaking step.

I feel very lucky to be working with Sheena – after all, how many poets get to see their words carved in stone? And in such a beautiful fashion?

Working in stone also feels like a steadying counterbalance to working with thin air on A Mouthful of Air – at one end of the spectrum, poetry is an embodied art, words cut in stone and built to last for hundreds of years; while at the other end, it’s as insubstantial and ephemeral as the mouthful of air in the poet’s mouth when the words are spoken aloud.

This is one of the things I love about the poetry – it’s a hybrid, multi-faceted, mercurial art, that is much more than words on a page.

     

It’s a poetry podcast called A Mouthful of Air, that aims to reconnect poetry with its roots as an oral art – and reconnect poets with listeners.

Here’s the introduction from the website, AMouthfulofAir.fm:

Once upon a time, long before the invention of writing, poetry was part of everyone’s life.

People gathered around the fire in the evening to hear poems of heroism and adventure, humans and gods, love and loss. And those poems were how we made sense of our world.

They told us where the universe came from, who made it, how it sustained itself, and what our role was in the great drama.

Poems showed us how to live and how to love. How to give and how to grieve.

They taught us about life and death, and even the afterlife.

And you know something?

Poets are still doing this today.

Poets and audiences may have drifted apart, but poetry is still doing what it always did: helping us to make sense of our world. Showing us how to live and love, give and grieve. And even to face death.

A Mouthful of Air is a podcast that offers you the original experience of poetry – of a voice in your ear, in a quiet time of the day, speaking words that conjure images in your mind and feelings in your heart.

If you like the sound of that, then I expand on this theme in Episode 1 of the podcast, and explain how the show works and how to get the most out of it.

There are two types of episode on A Mouthful of Air, each of which focuses on a single poem in close-up:

Solo episodes

This is where I read a poem and talk about how it works, with a strong emphasis on craft and form, as well as subject and theme. Most of the time I’m reading classic poems, but I’ll occasionally read one of my own poems.

So far I’ve done the poem that gave the podcast its name, ‘He Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved’ by Yeats, as well as Sonnet 60 by Shakespeare and ‘The Jumblies’ by Edward Lear.

Guest poet episodes

Here I invite a contemporary poet to read one of their poems, and ask them about its inspiration and how the finished poem evolved.

The first guest is my long-term mentor, Mimi Khalvati, reading a poem about eggs and saying some very interesting things about the sonnet form.

She’s followed by Cath Drake, with her poem ‘How I Hold the World in this Climate Emergency’, who talks about the challenges of writing about big and potentially overwhelming themes.

I have plenty more inspiring and award-winning poets lined up to appear on the show, and with the whole of English literature to choose from for the classic poems, I can guarantee a very high standard of poetry. I’m already getting some great feedback from listeners about the readings and presentation, so I hope you’ll find something to enjoy in the show.

Where to find A Mouthful of Air

Poetry is a multimedia art form – the same poem can live in a listener’s ear as well as a reader’s eye.

So A Mouthful of Air is a multimedia podcast. Here’s where you can get it:

It’s on all the main podcasting platforms, including, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google.

You can also read all the poems on the website AMouthfulofAir.fm and on Instagram @airpoets

And, if you want me to email you the audio and full transcript (including poem texts) of every episode of A Mouthful of Air, you can sign up here: AMouthfulofAir.fm/subscribe

Please note: I will not be sending every episode of A Mouthful of Air out via my poetry blog, so if you want to receive it via email, you’ll need to subscribe to the dedicated email list for the podcast.

You might find the text version particularly useful, because one of the things I’m encouraging you to do on the show is to read the poems out loud to yourself – so you’ll always get the poem text in that email.

Why would you want to read the poems out loud? Well, you’ll have to listen to episode 1 to find out.

Special thanks to…

I’m very grateful to Arts Council England for a National Lottery Project Grant, to help with the production costs of the show. I was determined to have the best possible production standards for the show, and the grant has been very helpful in achieving this.

So as well as the poetry reading and discussion, you will hear atmospheric music and soundscapes, created for A Mouthful of Air by the composer Javier Weyler. And Javier’s agency Breaking Waves are producing every episode of the show, ensuring the best possible sound quality.

And my long-term designer, Irene Hoffman, has responded brilliantly to my brief to create a logo suggestive of ‘air’.

Special thanks to my co-producer, Mami McGuinness, an experienced editor who has been providing invaluable help behind the scenes (and who also happens to be my wife).

I’ve been planning A Mouthful of Air for years and working flat out for months to make it happen. I hope you enjoy it and would love to hear what you make of it.

     

I’ve had a few poems published in magazines recently. You can read one of them online in (or should it be ‘at’?) Anthropocene. It’s called ‘Thirteen Birds’ and features different types of bird I remember from growing up in Devon.

Another two are in Brittle Star no.47, both about my children – one (‘Emergency Caesarean’) about the day they were born, and another (‘Waterwheels’) a special memory from when they were very small.

And this month I have a poem in Stand, about my favourite kind of day when we’re in Japan visiting my wife’s family – a soak in the onsen hot spring bath, followed by yakiniku meat barbeque. The poem is called ‘Fox’s Wedding’ which is a local term (狐の嫁入り) for a sunshower, when it rains while the sun is shining.

Apart from writing poems, I’m also working behind the scenes on not one but two exciting new poetry projects, that I’ll be releasing over the summer – I’ll make sure to let you know as soon as they see the light… Stay safe in the meanwhile.

     

As the UK went into Coronavirus lockdown over the past few days this poem by Thomas Hardy kept coming into my mind. So I thought I’d read it for you and talk about how I think it speaks to us at a time like this.

You should be able to play the recording in the SoundCloud player above, but if not you can find it on SoundCloud here.

I hope you enjoy the poem and that you stay safe until the crisis passes.

The Darkling Thrush

By Thomas Hardy

      

Comments

• In reply to Amir. Today it felt like you were the thrush who ... by Mark McGuinness
• Wonderfully read and dissected. Ironically It is not the land ... by Amir
• In reply to Joan. My pleasure Joan, I'm glad it resonated for ... by Mark McGuinness
• In reply to Tracey. Thank you Tracey. I hadn't made the ... by Mark McGuinness
• Thank you, Mark. Your voice brought the calmness to me. by Joan
• Mark – thankyou so much for sharing! I frequently listen to ... by Tracey

 

Click here to read the text, and here to listen to me read my translation of the opening stanzas of Troilus and Criseyde, which was awarded Third Prize that year. Happy memories.

FYI I’ve now finished translating the whole of Book 1 of Troilus – 1,092 lines of rime royal. It’s been terrific fun, and has given my metrical muscles a good workout.

So far Troilus has seen Criseyde for the first time, been thunderstruck with love, and – in traditional male fashion – has done a lot of moping in his bedroom, followed by plenty of complaining to his best friend. But things are afoot, as Pandarus assures Troilus he has a cunning plan…

…Only another four books to go.