I found Polcevera by Julian Bishop in the inaugural issue of The Alchemy Spoon, which is available in print and online. It may have been the alliteration in the first line that caught my attention: 'Your silent storm'. I love the subtly repeate

Broken Villanelle with Bees

Jan 18th, 2021 1m 1s

I found this poem by Sarah Alcaide-Escue in the second issue of Channel Magazine. I've been studying villanelle form - I enjoy the rhyme scheme.This poem forces me to stop and slow down. In the second line I wrangle with the repeated 'r' sound

Pterodactyl

Jan 4th, 2021 1m 49s

Pterodactyl is from John McCullough's latest collection, Reckless Paper Birds. I like the way the lines run on - I sometimes found it hard to pace myself so I had enough breath to finish the sentences, which forced me to think about the flow of

Song of the West Men

Nov 23rd, 2020 1m 2s

I have a weakness for repeated words and alliteration and I find both in Song of the West Men by Simon Armitage. Armitage makes use of a repeating form "the far of the far ... the isles of the isles ... the rocks of the rocks" that provides a

Almost

Nov 17th, 2020 41s

I found Almost be Elizabeth Jennings today while flipping through a collection in need of solace. I can't tell you why, but the sound and feel of "it almost was not' comforting. There's something hypnotic in the flow of these words, and in the

Time to be Slow

Nov 9th, 2020 37s

By John O'Donohue, Time to be Slow seems very apt after spending 3 weeks of the last 4 feeling unwell - taking time to be slow becomes very important when life gets tough. I enjoy how the poem's rhythm subtly shifts in the middle part of the p

As the team's head brass

Oct 19th, 2020 1m 59s

I discovered this poem when reading about metre and rhythm in contemporary poetry (The anthology 'Staying Alive' gives an excellently easy to digest short essay 'The Sound of Poetry' in its appendix.) It's written in unrhymed blank verse, and i

Madrigal

Sep 22nd, 2020 50s

I first heard Tomas Tranströmer's Madrigal when a Swedish colleague chose to read it my leaving party many years ago, for a job that I loved. That means I first heard it rather than read it, which makes me very happy. The final line about the s

Mushrooms

Sep 14th, 2020 1m 3s

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 are some gorgeous and unusual repeated sounds

Night Sister

Aug 24th, 2020 1m 5s

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 These Are The Hands (an anthology of poems writt

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Jul 27th, 2020 1m

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, the sounds of the words are almost three dime

Soda Crackers

Jul 13th, 2020 57s

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 monologue and not a poem, new meaning fizzed fro

I Shall Paint My Nails Red

Jul 6th, 2020 46s

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 poems I'd marked with a post-it note last time

Cold Snap

Jun 29th, 2020 1m 2s

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 rhythms manage to re-create the sharpness in t

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (page 25)

Jun 22nd, 2020 1m 4s

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 stressed syllable. Feel the pulse and the p

Custard Creams: A love sonnet

May 29th, 2020 1m 7s

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 ...

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