At this ominous time, as we all hunker down, hoping for a cure, perhaps only poetry offers true insight and consolation, if we lean on it, as we’ve always done in past crises. In this episode, 18 fine poets and close associates of ABR – such as J.M. Coetzee, Robyn Archer, and Sarah Holland-Batt – read some favourite poems, works that seem to resonate in these anxious times. (All the poems are listed below).

All poets and poems featured:

Robyn Archer reading ‘Bad Times’ by Bertolt Brecht

Judith Bishop reading ‘In Light and Darkness’ by Chris Wallace-Crabbe

Sarah Holland-Batt reading ‘Pavana Dolarosa’ by Geoffrey Hill

Stephen Edgar reading ‘Postscript’ by Seamus Heaney

Morag Fraser reading ‘Stand Whoso List’ by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Peter Goldsworthy reading ‘Rock’ by Jane Hirshfield

Lisa Gorton reading ‘Everyone Sang’ by Siegfried Sassoon

Rodney Hall reading ‘The Fairy Queen’ by Edmund Spenser

J.M. Coetzee reading ‘Mr Cogito’s Eschatological Premonitions’ by Zbigniew Herbert

Peter Rose reading ‘The Plain Sense of Things’ by Wallace Stevens

Ian Dickson reading ‘The Kingdom’ by Louis Macneice

A. Frances Johnson reading ‘Repose in Calamity’ by Henri Michaux and ‘Poem 341’ by Emily Dickinson

John Kinsella reading ‘Sweet Silence After Bells’ by Christopher Brennan

David McCooey reading ‘December Evening 1972’ by Tomas Tranströmer

Beejay Silcox reading ‘The Summer Day’ by Mary Oliver

Alex Skovron reading ‘Earthdom’ by Eugenio Montejo       

Judith Beveridge reading ‘The Thrush’ by Edward Thomas 

Paul Kane reading ‘b o d y’ by James Merrill

The ABR Podcast is released fortnightly every Wednesday and features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.

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