(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (03:20) – Joyelle McSweeney interview (54:50) – Southword poem, Another Beginning by Triin Paja Guggenheim Fellow Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poetry, drama and prose, a well-known critic, and a vital publisher of international literature in translation. McSweeney's recent book, Toxicon and Arachne (Nightboat Books, 2020), was called "frightening and brilliant" by Dan Chiasson in the New Yorker and earned her the S...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (11:24) – Traci Brimhall interview (57:24) – Southword poem, The Orange by Viviana Fiorentino Traci Brimhall is a professor of creative writing and narrative medicine at Kansas State University. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Love Prodigal (published November 2024 by Copper Canyon). Her poems have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, The New York Times Maga...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion (07:47) – Michael O’Loughlin interview (01:02:15) – Southword poem, Before I stillbirthed the birch by Katie Griffiths Michael O’Loughlin was born in Dublin in 1958 and studied at Trinity College Dublin. He has published six collections of poetry, including Another Nation: New and Selected Poems (1996), In This Life (2011) and Poems: 1980–2015, published by New Island Books (2017). O'Loughlin is a regular contributor to The Irish Tim...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion(03:30) – Matthew Dickman interview(56:35) – Southword poem, Missing by Daragh ByrneMatthew Dickman grew up in Lents, a working-class area of Portland, Oregon. He earned a BA at the University of Oregon and an MFA at the University of Texas-Austin’s Michener Center. He is the author of the poetry collections Husbandry (2022), Wonderland (2018), Mayakovsky's Revolver (2014), 50 American Poems (cowritten with Michael Dickman, 2012), and A...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion(02:46) - John W. Sexton interview(01:00:32) - Southword poem, Doors Opening, Doors Closing by Aidan MatthewsJohn W. Sexton was born in 1958 and identifies with the Aisling poetic tradition. His work spans vision poetry, contemporary fabulism and tangential surrealism. He is the author of seven poetry collections including The Offspring of the Moon (Salmon Poetry 2013), Futures Pass (Salmon Poetry 2018), Visions at Templeglantine (Reviv...

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion(03:32) - Gail McConnell interview(01:01:50) - Southword poem, 13.58, January 28th 2022 by James McDermottGail McConnell is from Belfast. She is the author of of The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021) and two poetry pamphlets: Fothermather (Ink Sweat & Tears, 2019) and Fourteen (Green Bottle Press, 2018). Fothermather was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award. Gail’s poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, PN...

(00:00) - Paisley Rekdal interview(53:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(01:03:15) - Southword poem, Waiting for the baby by Afric McGlincheyRekdal grew up in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a Chinese American mother and a Norwegian father. She earned a BA from the University of Washington, an MA from the University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author of the poetry collections West: A Transla...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O'Leary Discussion(04:55) - Deborah Paredez interview(58:00) - Southword poem, Mother Tongue by Grace H. ZhouDeborah Paredez is a poet and cultural critic. She is the author of the poetry volumes This Side of Skin (Wings Press 2002) and Year of the Dog (BOA Editions 2020), and the critical study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory (Duke UP, 2009). Her poetry and essays have appeared in Poetry magazine, the New York Times, Los Angele...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(08:35) - Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh interview(55:48) - Southword poem, A South Ulster Homestead by Mary O'DonnellAilbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh was born in Kerry. She has read at festivals in New York, Paris, Montréal, Berlin and Ballyferriter. In 2012 her poem ‘Deireadh na Feide’ won the O’Neill Poetry Prize. ‘Filleadh ar an gCathair’ was chosen as Ireland’s EU Presidency poem in 2013 and was shortlisted in 2015 for RTE’s ‘A Poem for Ireland’. Coi...

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(08:43) - Martín Espada interview(01:14:46) - Southword poem, When Our Mother Dies by Jenny MitchellMartín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest book of poems is called Floaters, winner of the 2021 National Book Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, ...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(24:23) - Thomas McCarthy interview(1:06:53) - Southword poem, The Woman Who Used To Bleed by Lorraine McArdleThomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford and educated at UCC. His many collections of poetry include Pandemonium (2016) and Prophecy (2019). A former Editor of Poetry Ireland Review, he is a member of Aosdána. His diaries, Poetry, Memory and the Party, were published in 2022 by The Gallery Press. His essays will be published by...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O'Leary Discussion(4:00) - Abigail Parry interview(47:23) - Southword poem, My Poetry Isn’t Art Enough by Pragya GogoiI Think We’re Alone Now was supposed to be a book about intimacy: what it might look like in solitude, in partnership, and in terms of collective responsibility. Instead, the poems are preoccupied with pop music, etymology, surveillance equipment and cervical examination, church architecture and beetles. Just about anything, in fact, excep...

(0:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(7:34) - Paddy Bushe interview(51:48) - Southword poem, Perault's Wolf by Tracy GaughanPaddy Bushe was born in Dublin in 1948 and now lives in Waterville, Co. Kerry. He writes in Irish and in English and he is a member of Aosdána. He received the 2006 Oireachtas prize for poetry, the 2006 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award and the 2017 Irish Times Poetry Now Award. In 2020, Dedalus Press published Double Vision, a two-volume publication comp...

Paul Muldoon is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and the most recent, Howdie-Skelp (2021). His other awards include the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 2003 Griffin Prize, the 2015 Pigott Prize, and the 2017 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Born in County Armagh in 1951, he has lived sine 1987 in the United States, where he is the Howard G. B. Clark Professor in the Humanities at Princeton Universi...

Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of two poetry collections: Far District and House of Lords and Commons. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among others. He is a contributing editor to the literary journ...

Susannah Dickey grew up in Derry and now lives in London. She is the author of four poetry pamphlets, I had some very slight concerns (2017), genuine human values (2018), bloodthirsty for marriage (2020), and Oh! (2022). In 2019 she won the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, and in 2021 she was longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner, a prize granted for a collection by poets under the age of 30. Her debut poetry collection, Isdal, will be published i...

Dean Browne won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2021 and his pamphlet, Kitchens at Night, was a winner of the Poetry Business International Pamphlet Competition; it was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2022. His poems have appeared widely in journals such as Banshee, Poetry (Chicago), Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Review, PN Review, Southword, The Stinging Fly, and elsewhere.This week's Southword poem is ‘Egyptian Wing’ by Heather Treseler, which appears in issue 41. You can buy single issues, su...

Molly Twomey grew up in Lismore, County Waterford, and graduated in 2019 with an MA in Creative Writing from University College Cork. She has been published in Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, The Irish Times, Mslexia, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She runs an online international poetry event, Just to Say, sponsored by Jacar Press. In 2021, she was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series and awarded an Arts Council Literature Bursary. Her debut collection, Raised Amo...

Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China, and composes poems both in English and Chinese. While studying civil engineering at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he realized his bigger passion lies in the architecture of language and became a poetry fellow at Michener Center for Writers. He is the recipient of the Joy Harjo Poetry Award and Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His name, Shangyang, originating from Chinese mythology, was a one-legged bird whose dance brought fo...