Podcast: Dave Daggers mixes music and poetry

Poet, photographer, musician and host of RARA open mic night Dave Daggers introduces some of his poems set to music and sets a prompt to write about an inflatable Maralyn Monroe or Elvis Presley. You can also hear my response to Bridget Leggy Tanner's 'fit' prompt from the last episode.

Dave is playing on 11th August in Cardiff and you can hear more of his music and poetry here.

Podcast: Renn Hubbuck-Melly

Renn Hubbuck-Melly talks about how she grew to love poetry and her hugely successful performance poetry open mic night Juke in Cardiff. We also hear poems on the theme of balance from Fran Smith, Clive Oseman, Will Ford and myself and Renn invites poems on the topic of fear as well as sharing some of her own poetry.

Matchwood

I have a splinter in my finger,
the needle, a slip of metal
prods like a blind prick trying to gain leverage
over the hair of wood.
The whorl distorting,
bark-eye sweet with blood.
Tweezers pinch the sloping rings,
I count them as they expand for excavation.
Thirty one arêtes shape the plumb of my thumb,
red sap curves and bleeds into the tributaries.
The chip comes loose,
small enough to be cargo on an ants back.
Does the tree feel this loss?
I wish to bring home this shard of limb
yet it is dead already,
a clipped nail forced under the lid of skin
flesh would reject
no longer as body
but as the outside we must protect against,
sapwood, heartwood whole, intact.

 By Renn Hubbuck-Melly

Podcast: Will Ford

Cardiff writer Will Ford talks about his writing, performances and publications and offers advice to other writers. He also offers a writing prompt "There’s something flickering in the corner of my eye and I don’t know whether I should look at it..."
Do share your poems in the comments below or at info@patrickwiddess.co.uk.

www.willdeanford.com

Photo by: Yvette Robertshaw Photography

Here's an extract of Will's long poem The Coward which he discusses during the podcast.

The candle on the wooden table
Casts a shadow that moves in the breeze
That steals in between the planks of this hut
In my head I sink down to my knees
Clasping my hands in a desperate prayer
The blood in my veins starts to freeze
In my head I see myself
Thrashing around on the floor
A stray bullet rips at my left side
My guts open up like a door
My insides all outside
Not even the pride
Of dying a hero in war
But what's so heroic about being dead?
Every man one day must die
But not every man will use his last breath
As the fuel to ask himself why
A coward will lie forever condemned
Not just till the day that he dies

To die in battle is to die with honour
So they told us in basic training
Even if just one step is taken
And you slip in the mud that is raining
When the shell impact turns you into meat
There'll be no time for complaining
When shellfire turns you into a hero
And your remains are collected and binned
You'll be remembered for your sacrifice
And the cheerful way that you grinned
But I asked myself in my coward's crater
Where will your medal be pinned?

Will Ford by Headstand on Mixcloud