S2 Ep5: Episode 11: Ilya Kaminsky & Sophie Robinson

Faber Poetry Podcast

In the penultimate episode of the second series, Ilya Kaminsky and Sophie Robinson join Jack and Rachael in the studio to discuss, among other things, poems with ‘big dick energy’, the blurring of poetry with other literary forms and the tension between metaphor and the denial of metaphor. Audio postcards are from Daisy Lafarge, Anthony Anaxagorou and Hugo Williams.

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Show notes

Studio guests

ILYA KAMINSKY was born in the former Soviet Union and is now an American citizen. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa, and co-editor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. Deaf Republic has been shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the National Book Award for Poetry. He has received a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. @ilya_poet

SOPHIE ROBINSON teaches Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and is the author of A and The Institute of Our Love in Disrepair. Her third collection, Rabbit, was published by Boiler House Press in 2018 and was chosen for the winter PBS Wild Card Choice. Recent work has appeared in n+1, The White Review, Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Ploughshares, BOMB Magazine, and Granta. @sophiepoetry

Audio postcards featured in this episode

‘the willows on the common are still on fire’, written and read by Daisy Lafarge. Her pamphlets understudies for air and capriccio were published by Sad Press in 2017 and Spam Press in 2019 respectively. @janepaulette

‘Cause’, written and read by Anthony Anaxagorou. Anthony’s most recent collection, After the Formalities, is out now from Penned in the Margins and is shortlisted for the 2019 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. @Anthony1983

‘Tara Browne’, written and read by Hugo Williams. Lines Off, Hugo’s latest collection, was published by Faber in June 2019.

About the presenters

RACHAEL ALLEN is the poetry editor at Granta, co-editor at the poetry press Clinic and of online journal tender. A pamphlet of her poems was published as part of the Faber New Poets scheme, and her first collection, Kingdomland, was published by Faber in January 2019. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory award and New Writing North’s Andrew Waterhouse award. @r_vallen

JACK UNDERWOOD is a poet, who also writes short fiction and non-fiction. A recipient of the Eric Gregory Award in 2007, he published his debut pamphlet in 2009 as part of the Faber New Poets series. His first collection Happiness was published by Faber in 2015 and was winner of the 2016 Somerset Maugham prize. He is a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths College and is currently writing a non-fiction book about poetry and uncertainty. Two pamphlets, Solo for Mascha Voice and Tenuous Rooms were published by Test Centre in 2018. @underwood_jack

The Faber Poetry Podcast is produced by Rachael Allen, Jack Underwood and Hannah Marshall for Faber & Faber. Editing by Strathmore Publishing. Special thanks to Anthony Anaxagorou, Ilya Kaminskyi, Daisy Lafarge, Sophie Robinson and Hugo Williams.