We're back again. This week I'm joined by Ian Duhig, a poet who has won the Forward Best Poem Prize, the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize four times.  A poet with six books to his name. A poet who continues to work with community projects pushing the power of words.  Today his book An Arbitrary Light Bulb is the winter selection for PBS and so we invited him into the Pickle Jar to talk about it ..read more

She's the winner of the Eric Gregory. Her new debut book Food for the Dead was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection and was the winner of the Laurel Prize 2024. Today we discuss Sharon Old's poem 'True Love'. As well as talk about experimental poetry, the power of poems and everything in between. Enjoy the vibes ..read more

Raymond Antrobus MBE FRSL was born in London, Hackney to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the author of Shapes & Disfigurements (Burning Eye, 2012) To Sweeten Bitter (Out-Spoken Press, 2017), The Perseverance (Penned In The Margins / Tin House, 2018), All The Names Given (Picador / Tin House, 2021), Signs, Music (Picador / Tin House, 2024). His individual poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Granta, Poetry Foundation, Lit Hub, London Review of Books, The Poetry Review, The Deaf Poets Society and elsewhere. In 2019 he became the first ever poet to be awarde ..read more

So proud to get Gail McConnell into the studio today. She's the writer of two pamphlets and one amazing book. The Sun Is Open was brought out on Penned a few years back and it really is a groundbreaking book and well worth a read. It won the The John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Award and The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize  and was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. It was a Poetry Book of the Month in the Guardian and in The Observer, a book of the year in the TLS and The White Review, and a poetry book ..read more

Very happy to be back with Ellen Cranitch in the Pickle Jar. She is a poet and lecturer. Her first collection, The Immortalist, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for Best First Collection. Her new collection, Crystal, was published by Bloodaxe, named “Dignified, moving and sure…" by The Observer where it was named book of the month, it was also recommended by Stephen Fry and Ian McMillan. Today she brings a Prynne Poem into the Pickle Jar and we speak of line breaks, intensity and the importance of syntax ..read more

With two books on the horizon, I'm extremely excited to bring Salena Godden into the Pickle Jar. Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist. Born in Hastings, UK, of Jamaican-Irish heritage, Godden based in London. Widely anthologised, she has published several books. She has also written for BBC TV and radio and has released four studio albums to date. Today we crack open a Nikita Gill poem to see what we can find ..read more

Very excited to bring Bryony Littlefair into the Pickle Jar. Partly because her debut poetry collection Escape Room (Seren, 2022) was excellent. Also because her pamphlet Giraffe won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize in 2017. But mostly because we both LOVE Tony Hoagland. So here's us geeking out over Tony Hoagland for 20 minutes ..read more

Immensely proud and thankful to PBS for bringing Paul Muldoon into the studio. Paul Muldoon is so big he's off the charts. I don't think there's many awards he hasn't won in his huge career. Today we celebrate his 14th book 'With Joy in Service on Rue Tagore'. We chat about all things poetry, about what it's like doing poems for that long, about his practice, his muse, the work and the joys of fact checkers. I learnt alot in this episode and so will you. If you like the episode please SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE ..read more

He's a tour de force for poetry. The pioneer of some ridiculously good live poetry events. A workshop facilitator, a father and the author of a brilliant debut called Manorisms. That book was shortlisted for the Eliots and the Rathbones. It is of course Yomi Sode and today he's brought a Gary Soto poem in called Oranges. You going to love this one ..read more

We're finally back. This week I'm joined by Golnoosh Nour. A Tehran born poet who has two fantastic collections. The most recent was Rocksong on Verve and it blew my face off. So I invited her in to talk about a poet and poem she really loves. Amongst Darkness by Forough-farrokhzad. Enjoy it. Share it. Pass it on ..read more