It's been a week of audio poems for me this week - first, I was a guest on the octopus-themed episode of Radio 3's The Verb last Friday, where I had the enormous thrill of reading four poems inspired by Peter Godfrey-Smith's book, 'Other Minds: The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent life - in front of Peter himself! I have been told I don't come across as a completely hysterical fan girl, but you can judge for yourself, it's a really fun programme hosted brilliantly, as ever, by Ian McMillan, and with the excellent Kate Fox and Matthew Welton. There was a lot of giggling, something very necessary right now. You can listen here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k3dl
And from octopuses to insects...I love being asked/commissioned to write new work, especially when it's inspired by something completely unknown to me. I didn't know the poet John Clare's work at all, so really enjoyed it when I was given free rein to respond to his poems with my own poem for the new Thunder Mutters podcast. I discovered John and I share a fascination for insects; I have a poem in my collection about the fire ant. So I decided to talk to John about it... through poetry.
"Dear John...
I am interested
in your choice of insect
names: tiny
loiterers, happy units.."
It's at 10 mins 28s but do listen to
the whole, magical Thunder Mutters podcast!
