This edition of our Nothing But The Poem podcast, hosted as usual by Samuel Tongue, features two poems by Isabelle Baafi, from her 2025 Forward Prize winning debut collection Chaotic Good.
‘In this wise-hearted and deft debut, Baafi gets to the grain of family, inheritance, the grit of growing up and the grappling to become oneself.’ - Rachel Long
‘Isabelle Baafi’s Chaotic Good is a debut of amazing endurance. Its formal pressures create a kind of kaleidoscopic intensity that – with each turn of the chamber – brings newly beautiful and painful shapes into focus. - Will Harris
The two poems discussed in the podcast from Chaotic Good are The Cottage and Burst Me Into Song
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From the archive: Hugo Williams. November 2014
Hugo Williams won the 1999 TS Eliot Prize for Billy’s Rain, a collection that captured a certain amount of journalistic interest for its unvarnished depiction of an affair. His collection, I Knew The Bride, was also been nominated for the TS Eliot Prize (as well as the Forward), although it’s subject matter is a little darker, taking in the death of his sister and his own kidney failure, which requires him to spend a significant amount of time every week on dialysis.
We were lucky to spend time with the poet in 2014 when he was up for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He talks about the influence of popular music on his work, mortality, and what Hardy was doing with Shelley’s heart.
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From the Archive: Jenny Lewis. May 2014
When we think of World War One, our images of the conflict are largely shaped by those of the Western Front or perhaps Gallipoli. It was a truly global conflict, however, and one less remarked upon campaign was that of an ill-fated Anglo-Indian force dispatched to secure oil supplies in what is, today, southern Iraq.
Poet, playwright and songwriter Jenny Lewis’ father fought as part of that force. Her collection Taking Mesopotamia (Carcanet) re-imagines the campaign using her father’s diaries. It also takes in more recent wars in the region as well as the story of Gilgamesh, the ancient Sumerian warrior king, to create a vision of a mankind that repeatedly fails to learn the lessons of war. Lewis took time out from the StAnza poetry festival, where she was appearing in March 2014,to talk to us about war, oil, myth, and the gods.
Photo by Ben Prestney
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Nothing But The Poem - Juana Adcock
The latest edition of our Nothing But The Poem podcast, hosted as usual by Samuel Tongue, features two poems by Juana Adcock.
Samuel Tongue comments: "Juana Adcock is a poet who works between languages and registers and themes, ever inventive and risk-taking. In this all too brief intro to two of her poems, I hope you get a sense of all of these elements. And please come and borrow her books from the SPL."
Liz Lochhead said of her first collection Split: "Here is sharp specificity, humour, daring. These poems rock. They sing."
The two poems discussed in the podcast are The Task of the Translator and The Guitar's Lament.
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From the Archive: J.L. Williams. March 2014
J.L. Williams is a poet fascinated by the possibility of metamorphosis, whether it be witnessed in the natural world or experienced in one’s own life. Her first collection Condition of Fire (Shearsman) was inspired by Ovid, and in her second collection Locust and Marlin (Shearsman) she returns to the theme of change from a fresh perspective. In this 2014 podcast, she talks to us about the nature of stone, the poetry of locusts, and just how spiritual she is.
Photo by Chris Scott.
Ireland