Best Close Talking A Poetry Podcast Podcasts (2024)

1
Women in Philosophy 57:01

23h ago57:01

57:01

The recovery of history’s ‘lost’ women is often associated with the advent of feminism, but, Sophie Smith writes, women’s contributions to Western philosophy have been regularly rediscovered since at least the 14th century. She joins Tom to discuss this cycle of forgetting and what we can learn from the women who held their own alongside Plato, Des…

1
Unspeakable Acts 47:01

7d ago47:01

47:01

James Pratt and John Smith were the last men hanged in England for the crime of sodomy, reported to the authorities by nosy landlords who later petitioned for clemency. Tom Crewe joins Thomas Jones to explain how exceptional – and unexceptional – the case was, the historical forces that led to the death sentence and the surprising ambivalence many …

1
Where does culture come from? 1:08:15

12d ago1:08:15

1:08:15

The word ‘culture’ now drags the term ‘wars’ in its wake, but this is too narrow an approach to a concept with a much more capacious history. In the closing LRB Winter Lecture for 2024, Terry Eagleton examines various aspects of that history – culture and power, culture and ethics, culture and critique, culture and ideology – in an attempt to broad…

1
Remembering the Future 38:26

19d ago38:26

38:26

In her recent LRB Winter Lecture, Hazel V. Carby discussed ways contemporary Indigenous artists are rendering the ordinarily invisible repercussions of ecocide and genocide visible. She joins Adam Shatz to expand on the artists discussed in her lecture, and how they disrupt the ways we’re accustomed to seeing borders, landmasses, and landscapes emp…

1
Leaving Haiti 43:56

28d ago43:56

43:56

Since the 2010 earthquake, ordinary life in Haiti has become increasingly untenable: in January this year, armed gangs controlled around 80 per cent of the capital. Pooja Bhatia joins Tom to discuss Haitian immigration to Chile and the US, the self-defeating nature of US immigration policy and the double binds Haitian refugees find themselves in. S…

1
Gurle Talk 34:01

1M ago34:01

34:01

Modern English speakers struggle to find sexual terms that aren’t either obscene or scientific, but that wasn’t always the case. In a recent review of Jenni Nuttall’s Mother Tongue, Mary Wellesley connects our linguistic squeamishness to changing ideas about women and sexuality. She joins Tom to discuss the changing language of women’s anatomy, wor…

1
The Belgrano Diary: Half a Million Sheep Can't Be Wrong 31:42

2M ago31:42

31:42

When Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher sends a huge flotilla on an 8000-mile rescue mission – to save a forgotten remnant of the empire, and her premiership. Onboard the nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror, Lieutenant Narendra Sethia starts to keep a diary. This is an extract from the first episode. To listen to the rest of it, …

1
Architecture Repopulated 48:44

2M ago48:44

48:44

Rosemary Hill, reviewing Steven Brindle’s Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530-1830, celebrates his approach to architecture as a social, collaborative endeavour, where human need (and human greed) stymies starchitectural vision. Rosemary takes Tom on a tour of British and Irish architecture, from the Reformation through industrialisation, fea…

1
Introducing: The Belgrano Diary 3:32

2M ago3:32

3:32

On 2 May 1982, the British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentinian warship, the General Belgrano, killing 323 men. It was the bloodiest event of the Falklands War – and the most controversial. The account of the sinking given by Thatcher's government was inaccurate in every crucial detail – and the truth would only emerge from the pages of a p…

1
The Shoah After Gaza 57:51

2M ago57:51

57:51

Pankaj Mishra joins Adam Shatz to discuss his recent LRB Winter Lecture, in which he explores Israel’s instrumentalisation of the Holocaust. He expands on his readings of Jean Améry and Primo Levi, the crisis as understood by the Global South and Zionism’s appeal for Hindu nationalists. Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/aftergazapod …

1
The Acid House Revolution 1:00:46

2M ago1:00:46

1:00:46

Between 1988 and 1994, the UK scrambled to make sense of acid house, with its radical new sounds, new drugs and new ways of partying. In a recent piece for the paper, Chal Ravens considers a reappraisal of the origins and political ramifications of the Second Summer of Love. She joins Tom to unpack the social currents channelled through the free pa…

1
On Giving Up 51:53

2M ago51:53

51:53

When is giving up not failure, but a way of succeeding at something else? In his new book, which began as a piece for the LRB, the psychoanalyst and critic Adam Phillips explores the ways in which knowing our limitations can be an act of heroism. This episode was recorded at the London Review Bookshop, where Phillips was joined by the biographer an…

1
On the Jewish Novel 55:19

3M ago55:19

55:19

When Deborah Friedell and Adam Thirlwell met twenty years ago, they started a discussion about Jewish identity they are still puzzling over today. Revisiting Philip Roth’s The Counterlife (1986), an American take on British antisemitism and the escapist allure of aliyah, Adam and Deborah discuss the nuances of Jewish experience and novel-writing ac…

1
Dr Comfort, Mr Sex 52:56

3M ago52:56

52:56

Gerontologist, pacifist, novelist, medical doctor and mollusc expert – Alex Comfort was far more than just the author of the staggeringly popular Joy of Sex. In her review of a new biography, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite navigates the convictions and contradictions of this bewilderingly polymathic thinker. She joins Tom to trace Comfort’s life fr…

1
The World's First Author 45:58

3M ago45:58

45:58

Enheduana was a Sumerian princess who lived around 2300 BCE and composed what is now regarded as the earliest poetry by a known author. Her father, Sargon of Akkad, is said to have created the world’s first empire, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and as part of his imperial mission he installed his daughter as the high priest…

1
Protest, what is it good for? 59:50

3M ago59:50

59:50

From the Egyptian Revolution to Extinction Rebellion, the 2010s were marked by a global wave of spontaneous and largely structureless mass protests. Despite overwhelming numbers and popular support, most of these movements failed to achieve their aims, and in many cases led to worse conditions. James Butler joins Tom to make sense of the ‘mass prot…

1
Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland' 34:54

3M ago34:54

34:54

In the first episode of their new Close Readings series on political poetry, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland’ by Andrew Marvell, described by Frank Kermode as ‘braced against folly by the power and intelligence that make it possible to think it the greatest political poem in the language’. Sig…

1
War in Tigray 45:24

4M ago45:24

45:24

Ethiopia is one of the world’s most populous countries, and yet the 2020-22 Tigray War and ongoing suffering in the region has been largely ignored by the world at large. Tom Stevenson joins the podcast to break down the history of the conflict, and explore why Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel laureate, has come to preside over such a brutal civi…

1
Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' 30:06

4M ago30:06

30:06

Were the Middle Ages funny? Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley begin their series in quest of the medieval sense of humour with Chaucer’s 'Miller’s Tale', a story that is surely still (almost) as funny as when it was written six hundred years ago. But who is the real butt of the joke? Mary and Irina look in detail at the mechanics of the plot and …

1
Proust in English 46:48

4M ago46:48

46:48

Did the foundational event of Proust’s great novel really happen? Michael Wood talks to Tom about several English translations of In Search of Lost Time, old and new, and what they reveal about different ways of reading the novel. If the dipping of the madeleine in his tea conjures an overwhelming memory of the narrator’s childhood, it is also a ch…

1
New TV/Old TV 51:25

4M ago51:25

51:25

James Meek joins Tom to talk about a recent book by Peter Biskind on ‘the New TV’, reviewed by James in the latest issue of the paper. They discuss the rise of cable TV in the 1990s, the emergence of the streaming giants, the power of the showrunner and whether the golden age of television drama is really coming to an end. Read James's piece: https…

1
Was Jane Austen Gay? And other questions from the LRB archive 40:17

5M ago40:17

40:17

Tom Crewe, Patricia Lockwood, Deborah Friedell, John Lanchester, Rosemary Hill and Colm Tóibín talk to Tom about some of their favourite LRB pieces, including Terry Castle’s 1995 essay on Jane Austen's letters, Hilary Mantel’s account of how she became a writer, and Alan Bennett’s uncompromising take on Philip Larkin. Read the pieces: Terry Castle …

1
Byron before Byron 39:52

5M ago39:52

39:52

Byron’s early poems – his so-called ’dark tales’ – have been dismissed by critics as the tawdry, slapdash products of an uninteresting mind, and readers ever since have found it difficult not to see them in light of the poet’s dramatic and public later life. In a recent piece for the LRB, Clare Bucknell looked past the famous biography to observe t…

1
Manutius, the Biblophile's Bibliophile 44:02

5M ago44:02

44:02

In Renaissance Venice, Aldus Manutius turned his mid-life crisis into a publishing revolution, printing books that permanently changed the way we read. In a recent review, Erin Maglaque celebrates Aldus as the progenitor of the paperback and a model for late bloomers. She tells Tom about Aldus’s achievements, his monumental ego and his part in the …

1
Camus in the Americas 44:36

5M ago44:36

44:36

Feverish, homesick, bored, awed and on rollerskates: Albert Camus’s travel diaries are a fascinating window into an easily mythologised life. Camus visited the New World twice, and a new translation of his journals reveals his struggle to make sense of his experiences. Adam Shatz joins Tom to explain the ways Camus’s ambivalence towards the America…

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Close Talking A Poetry Podcast

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1
Women in Philosophy 57:01

1
Unspeakable Acts 47:01

1
Where does culture come from? 1:08:15

1
Remembering the Future 38:26

1
Leaving Haiti 43:56

1
Gurle Talk 34:01

1
The Belgrano Diary: Half a Million Sheep Can't Be Wrong 31:42

1
Architecture Repopulated 48:44

1
Introducing: The Belgrano Diary 3:32

1
The Shoah After Gaza 57:51

1
The Acid House Revolution 1:00:46

1
On Giving Up 51:53

1
On the Jewish Novel 55:19

1
Dr Comfort, Mr Sex 52:56

1
The World's First Author 45:58

1
Protest, what is it good for? 59:50

1
Political Poems: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland' 34:54

1
War in Tigray 45:24

1
Medieval LOLs: Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' 30:06

1
Proust in English 46:48

1
New TV/Old TV 51:25

1
Was Jane Austen Gay? And other questions from the LRB archive 40:17

1
Byron before Byron 39:52

1
Manutius, the Biblophile's Bibliophile 44:02

1
Camus in the Americas 44:36

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