Southword Poetry Podcast

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion(11:01) – Eilean Ni Chuilleanáin interview(01:02:57) – Southword poem, Roadkill in Offaly by Simon CostelloEiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork City in 1942. She was a founder member of Cyphers, the literary journal (1975). Her first collection, Acts and Monuments, won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. The Gallery Press has published her nine collections of poems including The Sun-fish which won the Griffin International Poetry Prize and The Mother House (2019) winner of the Irish Times Poetry Now Award. Her Collected Poems (2020) won the Pigott Poetry Prize. Her 2023 collection The Map of the World won the Farmgate Café National Poetry Award. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is a Fellow and Professor of English (Emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin. She served as Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2016-2019 and, in 2025, was elected a Saoi, the highest honour of Aosdána.This week's Southword poem is 'Roadkill in Offaly' by Simon Costello, which was one of the poems in the selection which won the inaugural Southword Editors' Poetry Award and appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion(04:21) – Mary O'Malley interview(52:30) – Southword poem, The Burial of Ten-to Two Blue by Paul McMahonMary O’Malley was born in Connemara, and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at the Universidade Nova there. She served several years on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the Cúirt International Poetry Festival for eight years. She was the author of its educational programme. She has published nine books of poetry, including Valparaiso arising out of her Residency on the national marine research ship. Her latest Collection, The Shark Nursery, is published by Carcanet.This week's Southword poem is 'The Burial of Ten-to Two Blue' by Paul McMahon, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion(03:04) – Aifric Mac Aodha interview(42:06) – Southword poem, Mermaid Archipelago by Patrick ChapmanAifric Mac Aodha was born in 1979. Her first collection, Gabháil Syrinx, was published in 2010. She has taught in St Petersburg, New York and Canada and has lectured in old and modern Irish at UCD. She lives in Dublin where she works for the Irish-language publisher, An Gúm. She was the winner of the Oireachtas Prize for Poetry (2017) and was Irish-Language Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University (DCU) in 2023. She has published two bilingual collections with The Gallery Press and Aifric’s Irish-language poems are translated into English by David Wheatley. Foreign News was published in 2017 and her new collection Old Friends in 2024.This week's Southword poem is 'Mermaid Archipelago' by Patrick Chapman, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion(06:39) – Isabelle Baafi interview(40:41) – Southword poem, Aching Embouchure by Ellen ZhangIsabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) Recommendation, and Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020), which won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her writing has been published in Granta, the TLS, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, The London Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and an Obsidian Foundation Fellow. She edits at Poetry London and Magma.This week's Southword poem is 'Aching Embouchure' by Ellen Zhang, which appears in issue 45. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion(08:38) – Gerry Murphy interview(47:21) – Southword poem, Mrs. Violet Club by Polina Cosgrave Gerry Murphy is an Irish poet, born in Cork in 1952. His first poetry collection was A Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards (1985, 1992). He has since published many collections with The Dedalus Press including Rio de la Plata and All That (1993), The Empty Quarter (1995), Extracts from the Lost Log-Book of Christopher Columbus (1999), Torso of an Ex-Girlfriend (2002), My Flirtation with International Socialism (2010), Muse (2015) and The Humours of Nothingness (2020). He has published two chapbooks with Southword Editions, Kissing Maura O’Keeffe (2019) and My Life as a Stalinist (2018). Murphy’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Well Review and The Future (Arlen House, 2018). Pocket Apocalypse, his translations of the Polish poet Katarzyna Borun-Jagodzinska, appeared in 2005 from Southword Editions. Murphy’s own poems form the basis for a live poetry-and-music show by Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, entitled The People’s Republic of Gerry Murphy, which ran at the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival in 2010 to considerable critical success.This week's Southword poem is 'Mrs. Violet Club' by Polina Cosgrave, which appears in issue 45. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.