Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast

Frank spends a day in Belfast, wallowing in the poetry of Seamus Heaney. The poem referenced are ‘Personal Helicon’ from ‘Death of a Naturalist’ and ‘Limbo’ by Seamus Heaney. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A poem by Ruth Padel results in Frank staring, for 15 minutes, at an embroidery of an elephant. The poem referenced is ‘Mary’s Elephant, Elizabeth’s Spinet’ from ‘The Soho Leopard’ by Ruth Padel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank is more than slightly besotted with ‘Lunch Poems’ by Frank O'Hara. The poems referenced are ‘Personal Poem’ and ‘The Day Lady Died’ by Frank O’Hara. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank gets very excited about the Rebecca Hawkes collection, ‘Meat Lovers’. The poems referenced are ‘After The Blizzard I Followed My Mother’ and ‘Pony Club Summer Camp’ by Rebecca Hawkes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank spends the night in Dylan Thomas' bedroom. The poems referenced are ‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’, ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ and ‘A Refusal To Morn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London’ by Dylan Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank loves a hard-drinking, hard-smoking Polytechnic lecturer like Martin Bell, especially when he is offering poetic praise to Groucho Marx. The poems referenced are ‘Ode to Groucho’ by Martin Bell and ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jo Shapcott sends Frank, an enthusiastic tree-hugger, into a sap-soaked frenzy. The collection referenced is ‘Of Mutability’. The poems referenced are ‘I Go Inside The Tree’, ‘My Oak’ and ‘Cypress’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank stands in awe as Sasha Dugdale sends a frighteningly honest Valentine’s message. The collection referenced is ‘Joy’ by Sasha Dugdale. The poems referenced are ‘Joy’ and ‘Valentine’s’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank is alarmed by AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Irish poet, Jessica Traynor, explores one of Frank’s favourite subjects – ageing performers who don’t know when to quit. The collection referenced is ‘Pit Lullabies’ by Jessica Traynor. The cycle of poems referenced is ‘An Island Sings’. The poems referenced are ‘The Parent’s Song’, ‘Song of the Insomniac’ and ‘Nureyev in Dublin’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American poet, Billy Collins, makes Frank question the whole Poetry Podcast experience. The poems referenced are ‘Introduction to Poetry’ and ‘American Sonnet’ by Billy Collins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank trembles at the fragmented beauty of Sappho, the superstar poet of Ancient Greece. The fragment translations are by Aaron Poochigian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank explores The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Nuff said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 9 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast begins on 10th January. See you there! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it a man? Is it a moth? Frank has a strange night out with Elizabeth Bishop. The poem referenced is 'The Man-Moth'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank indulges his obsession with the Anglo Saxons as he reads Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did he or didn't he? Frank investigates Robert Browning's 'My Last Duchess'. The other poem referenced is 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' by Robert Browning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nature gets horny and reflective. Frank is excited about the poetry of Jean Sprackland. The collection referenced is 'Green Noise'. The poem referenced is 'April' and the sequence referenced is 'The Lost Villages'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank examines statues and statutes with Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poems referenced are 'England in 1918' and 'Ozymandias'. The essay referenced is 'A Defense of Poetry'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank howls at the moon with Sylvia Plath. The poems referenced are 'The Moon and the Yew Tree' and 'Ariel. TW: mentions of suicide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank celebrates the razor-sharp poetic mind of Don Paterson. The poem referenced is 'Rain'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elizabeth Barrett Browning shows Frank that it's hard to be a mother and a poet and a revolutionary. The poem referenced is 'Mother and Poet'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 8 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast coming very soon... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Frank discovers two very different war poets, Alan Ross and Alan Seeger. The poems referenced are ‘Mess Deck’ by Alan Ross and ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Death’ by Alan Seeger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Frank explains why the poet, Charlotte Mew, should, in his opinion, be a household name. The poems referenced are ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ and ‘Sea Love’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Frank screams the praises of Sinéad Morrissey’s Beatlemania poems. The book referenced is ‘On Balance’. The poems referenced are ‘The Millihelen’ and ‘Perfume’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week: Thomas Hardy’s poetry, featuring love, death and men that look like holly bushes. The poems referenced are ‘Exeunt Omnes’, ‘A Light Snow-Fall After Frost’ and ‘A Countenance’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Frank enters the funny but unsettling world of Selima Hill. The collection referenced is ‘Men Who Feed Pigeons’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, John Keats talks to pottery. The poem referenced is ‘Ode on A Grecian Urn’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we look at a John Masefield poem from 1911, in which a naked drunk runs through a town at midnight, threatening firefighters with their own hose-nozzles. The poems referenced are ‘Sea-Fever’, ‘The Everlasting Mercy’, ‘Dauber’ and ‘Partridges’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week: why do so many of us stagger through life leaving a trail of chaos and confusion? American poet, Kay Ryan, reveals it’s because we are carrying an invisible ladder. The poems referenced are ‘We’re Building the Ship As We Sail It’, ‘Carrying A Ladder’ and ‘Blandeur’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, American poet, Richard Wilbur, explains why stones aren’t very ambitious. The poems referenced are ‘A Dubious Night’ and ‘Two Voices in A Meadow’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, American Poet Laureate, Ada Limón heads for the safe haven of the parental raincoat. The poems referenced are ‘The Contract Says: We’d Like the Conversation to be Bilingual’, ‘The Raincoat’ and ‘Before’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Ted Hughes shows us that writing a poem is like a stinking fox walking across a snow-covered field. The poem referenced are ‘The Thought Fox’ and ‘The Jaguar’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, our Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, writes a brilliant poem about what some might think is an unlikely subject. The poem referenced is ‘The Patriarchs – An Elegy’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Carol Ann Duffy considers the profound, prayer-like quality of the Shipping Forecast. The poems referenced are ‘Death of a Teacher’ and ‘Prayer’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, John Betjeman gets a tennis-based humiliation from the girl of his dreams. The poem referenced is ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 6 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast begins on 8th February. See you there! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At last, our first jousting poet - Frank meets Sir Thomas Wyatt, head-on. The poems referenced are They Flee From Me and Farewell Love and All Thy Laws For Ever by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank went on holiday with Emily Dickinson and came back in love with her poetry. The poems referenced are ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’, ‘One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted’ and ‘A Wind That Rose’ by Emily Dickinson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vampires and mermaids - Frank falls under the spell of Clare Pollard’s fabulous poetry. The collection referenced is Changeling by Clare Pollard and the individual poems referenced are Zennor and Whitby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank meets Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott and finds out why Camelot is a bit of a lottery. The poems referenced are The Charge Of The Light Brigade and The Lady Of Shalott both by Tennyson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drunken nights and floppy discs - Frank gets excited about the poetry of Leontia Flynn. The collection referenced is Profit and Loss by Leontia Flynn and the individual poems referenced are Anecdote and The Floppy Disk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank explains why the first poetry book he ever bought, The Mersey Sound, changed his life forever. The poems referenced are Without You and The New ‘Our Times’ by Adrian Henri, Where Are You Now, Batman, Party Piece and After Breakfast by Brian Patten, and On Picnics, Café Portraits and Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death by Roger McGough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 5 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast coming very soon... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank shares a cold, sad Sunday morning with Robert Hayden. The poems referenced are Those Winter Sundays and The Whipping by Robert Hayden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank explores the poetic treasure-trove that is Michael Symmons Roberts’ collection, Drysalter. The poems referenced are Face to Face, Through a Glass Darkly and Discoverers by Michael Symmons Roberts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wordsworth revisited: the leech-gatherer. The poem referenced is Resolution and Independence by William Wordsworth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank loves Nick Laird’s poetry. And manual typewriters. The collection referenced is On Purpose by Nick Laird and the poem referenced is The Underwood No. 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank loves Walt Whitman, right down to his comfortable shoes… The poems referenced are Poets to Come, To You, Song of the Universal and Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank heads North with the amazing Jen Hadfield. The collection referenced is The Stone Age by Jen Hadfield. The individual poems referenced are Hardanger Fiddle & Nyckelharpa, (Lighthouse) and (Erratic) by Jen Hadfield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Batman, Captain America and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank celebrates Caroline Bird and wonders if he should have saved this one for Valentine’s Day. The collection referenced is The Air Year by Caroline Bird. The individual poems discussed are Temporary Vows and I Am Not a Falconer, both by Caroline Bird. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 4 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast coming soon... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank meets WH Auden in an art gallery and falls in love all over again. Poems referenced: Musée des Beaux Arts - WH Auden Funeral Blues - WH Auden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank finds out when the Illegal Age began, with Ellen Hinsey. Please note this podcast has some disturbing content. Poem referenced: The Illegal Age - Ellen Hinsey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank spends a dark night on Dover Beach with Matthew Arnold and, hold on, isn’t that Sophocles over there? Poems referenced: Dover Beach - Matthew Arnold Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse - Matthew Arnold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank reads Tracy K Smith and finally gets his priorities right. Collections referenced: Wade in the Water - Tracy K Smith Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman Poems referenced: Political Poem – Tracy K Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank hits the high notes with Peter Riley and accidentally arrives at his favourite-ever definition of poetry. Collection referenced: Passing Measures – Peter Riley Poems referenced: The Little Watercolour at Sligo – Peter Riley Do It Again – Peter Riley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank explores the wonders and horrors of city-life, with Denise Levertov and two dogs of disproportionate size. Poems referenced: The Rainwalkers by Denise Levertov The Mutes by Denise Levertov Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank celebrates one of his all-time favourite poems: The Star-Splitter by Robert Frost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank discovers Ella Frears at a motorway services and shares some intimate notes. Collection referenced: Shine, Darling by Ella Frears Poems referenced: Midpoint by Ella Frears The Film by Ella Frears Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Couplets, cruelty and the occasional caning. Frank enters the poetical world of Alexander Pope. Poems Referenced Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot - Alexander Pope Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rita Dove teaches Frank the art of poetry and how to pull. Poems Referenced: Ars Poetica - Rita Dove Flirtation - Rita Dove Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank walks the untrodden ways with William Wordsworth. Poems Referenced: She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways - William Wordsworth Spring – Alexander Pope The Tables Turned – William Wordsworth Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known – William Wordsworth A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal – William Wordsworth Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower – William Wordsworth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Never mind the poetry, here’s the white bits. Frank has a wild night out with the Polish poet, Tadeusz Dabrowski. Poems Referenced: I Believe All Round the Clock - Tadeusz Dabrowski (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) Soiree - Tadeusz Dabrowski (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) Bunny Slope - Tadeusz Dabrowski (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank has always had a fascination with the Wild West. In this episode he explores the macabre Western ballads of Cathy Park Hong. This podcast contains some disturbing images. Poems Referenced: Abecedarian Western - Cathy Park Hong Ballad in I – Cathy Park Hong The Song of Katydids – Cathy Park Hong From ‘Fort Ballads’ Ballad of the Range – Cathy Park Hong Ballad of Fort Mann – Cathy Park Hong Ballad of Grace – Cathy Park Hong Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank begins series 2 with a poem that made him cry in a hotel room. Poems Referenced: Bird – Liz Berry Birmingham Roller – Liz Berry The Sea of Talk – Liz Berry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Series 2 of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast coming soon... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the last of the series, Frank showers in the word-waterfall that is the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank is often attracted to a poem by its title. This week he discusses 'Famous Bigshots' by Caroline Knox. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank tells how Philip Larkin’s ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ gave him a massive panic attack. Poems referenced: Philip Larkin – Wild Oats Philip Larkin - Dockery and Son Philip Larkin - An Arundel Tomb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank Skinner takes us on a guided tour of Donna Stonecipher’s ‘Model City’. Poems Referenced: Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby) - The Lay of Saint Cuthbert From Donna Stonecipher’s ‘Model City’: Number 8 Number 47 Number 19 Number 14 Number 69 Number 51 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank Skinner celebrates the Beat Poets – a generation of poets in the 1940s and 50s who rebelled against American conventions, championed ‘spontaneous writing’, and won over Frank in a school assembly. Poems referenced include: Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Sometime During Eternity Gregory Corso - Man About to Enter Sea Allen Ginsberg - Sunflower Sutra William Wordsworth - I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud Lawrence Ferlinghetti – He Plus Frank argues that Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is a poem too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank Skinner delves into Stevie Smith's 'Not Waving But Drowning', and William Carlos Williams' 'Dance Russe'. There will be no guests, just Frank exploring different poems every week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Absolute Radio presenter and comedian Frank Skinner talks about poems “like I talk about football” in his new podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices