Favourite Literary Podcasts

I spent much of the day preparing to record a podcast, the third episode of On the Line: Conversations About Poetry (http://www.therustytoque.com/on-the-line). It’s a podcast designed to operate like a book club with each episode devoted to discussion of a single book of poems. I serve as host and producer, choosing the book, inviting three guests to join me on each episode, then facilitating the discussion. So preparation means rereading the book, dipping into interviews with the author and perhaps the odd review or essay about the book, and thinking up possible questions or topics for discussion. The goal is for the discussion ultimately to be guided not by my interests but by those of the guests, and for it to develop spontaneously once we’re together in the same room with the recording equipment rolling. But I like to be prepared and to have some prompts ready to get us started, or restarted in the event that the conversation flags. This month’s book is Look by Solmaz Sharif and its impact on me has grown with each rereading. Truly a galvanizing book.

There are many reasons why I started a podcast, not least the pleasure of discussing great books with fellow readers, and the opportunity to share those great books and those discussions more broadly. But also high on the list is the fact that I so enjoy listening to podcasts myself, especially poetry podcasts. I have a long commute to work, an hour and a half each way via public transit. I generally read on the way there. But on the way home when my eyes and my brain are tired, listening suits me better and the proliferation of podcasts in recent years has been a boon. I no longer hate my commute.

Below is a list of some of my favourite podcasts: four literary podcasts, and four more that are not overtly literary but each of which has at some point fed into my writing.

Four poetry podcasts:

1. Scottish Poetry Library Podcast

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/podcast

This podcast is comprised of interviews with a range of poets, some whose work I already know well and others that are new to me. It has really helped me to expand my knowledge of contemporary poetry beyond North America, especially to work emanating from the UK, but with a number of episodes devoted to work in translation, elsewhere in the world as well. The most recent episodes are devoted to interviews with Helen Mort and Sarah Howe. But the archives go back years—hours and hours of stimulating listening.

2. Bookworm on KCRW

http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm

This podcast is comprised of interviews by host Michael Silverblatt with a range of authors about their latest books. It’s not exclusively devoted to poetry but poets make regular appearances in the roster of interviewees. Silverblatt’s enthusiasm for the books under discussion is infectious. He’s a perceptive reader and his questions generally yield great responses. I often find myself ordering the book afterwards if I don’t already have it, or rereading it if I do.

3. Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People)

http://www.commonpodcast.com/

This podcast is comprised of in-depth (most more than an hour long), often intimate, interviews by poet Rachel Zucker with fellow poets. It’s a relatively new podcast, but the archive is building quickly. Zucker’s interviewees include a number of the contemporary U.S. poets whose work I am most excited about these days (Claudia Rankine, Cathy Park Hong, Olena Kalytiak Davis). And with poet interviewing poet, the conversations often dig deep into writing processes and ethics. It feels to me like an incredible privilege to get to spend that kind of time with these poets.

4. Poetry Magazine Podcast

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audio/series/detail/74637

This podcast highlights the contents of the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, usually with three poems from the magazine being read aloud by their authors, then discussed by editors Don Share and Lindsay Garbutt. I appreciate getting to hear the authors reading their own poems, and it’s illuminating to hear what the editors find most compelling about them. The podcast has just this month switched from a monthly to a weekly format. I’m divided on this. I like the idea of getting to listen more often, but I don’t think the podcast has expanded so it’s a just a matter of getting the same content in smaller dollops. I suspect that I will miss the experience of the more substantial monthly version. However, I will continue to listen for the pleasure of hearing great poems read and discussed. This month has featured poems by Carolyn Forché, Victoria Chang, and Kaveh Akbar.

Four more which have fed my writing:

1. Voices of the First World War

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03t7p9l/episodes/downloads

This BBC podcast draws upon the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum in London to tell the story of WWI through a collage of firsthand accounts. It’s arranged topically, for the most part, with episodes devoted to particular battles or to broader subjects (conscientious objectors, prisoners of war, morale). I listened to the one on munitions factories before writing one of the final poems in How to Draw a Rhinoceros, and I’m quite sure that the one on gas attacks will figure in a poem sequence I’m working on now.

2. Explore the Symphony

https://nac-cna.ca/en/podcasts/show/explore-the-symphony 

In this podcast from the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, double bass player Marjolaine Fournier and music journalist Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer delve deeply into orchestral works being performed by the NAC orchestra, and set them in the context of the composers’ lives and work. Fournier and van Vlasselaer have a wonderful rapport and their conversations are very illuminating. I’ve been working for a while on a series of poems about composers, and some of the things I’ve learned listening to particular episodes have found their way into poems. But every episode that I’ve listened to has enriched my subsequent symphony going and classical music listening experiences.

3. Great Lives

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qxsb/episodes/downloads

In each episode of this podcast, a guest chooses a historical figure whose life they find to be inspiring. The host and that guest, together with a second guest expert, most often a biographer, explore the life and try to get at what makes it inspiring. If you scroll back through years of episodes, you’ll see the vast range of subjects whose lives have been explored. I have learned much of interest from the episodes devoted to writers, artists, and musicians about their creative processes. Most recently though, I found the episode devoted to Ida B. Wells very helpful in connection with one of the chapters in the book I’m writing about writers’ lawsuits.

4. Seven Ages of Science

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0380wf8/episodes/downloads

I’m a great fan of BBC television science documentaries, and this podcast demonstrated to me that BBC radio science documentaries are of an equally high calibre. In this podcast, historian Lisa Jardine takes listeners though the history of science in Britain from the Restoration onwards. I’ve listened to the whole thing twice and it has sent me off on various research quests following up on intriguing tidbits, some of which have turned into poems.

If you enjoy podcasts, I hope that you find some good listening in these ones.