In this episode, poet Katharine Towers discusses Elizabeth Bishop’s poems ‘Sandpiper’ and ‘Jerónimo’s House’ and her own poem ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph.’

In the interview, Katharine explains how she went from being a prose writer to a poet in part from reading Elizabeth Bishop’s poems. She examines the qualities of Bishop’s writing through an extended reading of ‘Sandpiper’, focusing in particular on line lengths, repetitions and rhymes. Katharine highlights the three things that Bishop strived for in her work — accuracy, spontaneity and mystery which she goes on to reflect on in both 'Sandpiper' and 'Jerónimo's House'. With regards to ‘Jeronimo’s House’, Katharine delves into her own interest in solitude when looking at this piece. She considers the idea that Jerónimo’s house is a ‘love nest’: unpicking this notion through various ways of reading this phrase. She explores the idea that Bishop (or her subjects) are often looking for a refuge or somewhere to hide away.

Katharine then goes on to illuminate her own poem ‘Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph’. She talks about how she was inspired by Bishop’s comment to Robert Lowell about being the loneliest person who ever lived. Katharine sees this work as being a part of a sequence of first-person poems in the voice of various 'alone' women - and the ways in which aloneness was important to them. She reflects on the poem’s slant, the language of the work, the perspective (and possible feelings) of the narrator.

There are various editions of Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Poems - the one I have is Complete Poems (Chatto, 1991). You can read ‘Sandpiper’ here.

As well as the Bishop poems highlighted we also touch on ‘The Moose’, ‘The End of March’, ‘The Bight’ and ‘The Fish’ in our conversation.

Katharine Towers has published three collections with Picador, most recently Oak which was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian. The Floating Man (2010) won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and The Remedies (2016) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Observer. A fourth collection is forthcoming from Picador in 2026. A pamphlet 'let him bring a shrubbe' exploring the life and work of the twentieth-century English composer Gerald Finzi was published by The Maker’s Press in 2023. In 2019 HappenStance Press published another pamphlet The Violin Forest.

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

'Elizabeth Bishop’s Sad Epitaph' by Katharine Towers In my fairy palace I am as lonely as I could wish. The ivy has grown up and over, and cosily inside there’s just little me reading or sitting. I could be on the moon or I could be in a Hans Christian Andersen story or I could be a girl getting over a love affair. The first room has two beds, so one will always be empty. The second room has two chairs, so I can see where I will sit tomorrow. The third room has two notebooks, so there will always be blank pages. At night I listen to flamenco on the radio. As I snap my fingers and click my heels I feel tremendously Spanish, or I feel a sultry empty weary joy. Covering the windows are the ivy’s mathematical hands. Daylight pokes through when it can, making of the worn-out floorboards a map of bright dots.

In this episode, poet Mark Pullinger discusses Shinkichi Takahashi’s poem ‘Sparrow in Winter’ (translated by Lucien Stryk) and two of Mark’s poems: ‘Magus' and ‘Untitled’. In the interview, we talk about Mark’s introduction to Zen poetry - and Zen haiku in particular - through his discovery of Shinkichi Takahashi’s work. We examine the multifaceted qualities of Takahashi’s poem ‘Sparrow in Winter’, which adopts simple language to create nuanced and complex associations around consciousness, the void, how the narrator and sparrow ‘mesh' with each other. We then go on to explore Mark’s approaches to writing through focusing on ‘Magus’ and ‘Untitled’. Mark talks in some depth - drawing on the specifics of these two pieces - about how his poetry has evolved over the past decade since the publication of his thesis.

You can find Takahashi’s poem ‘Sparrow in Winter’ in his collection Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems by Shinkichi Takahashi - translated by Lucien Stryk (Grove Press, 1986). I picked up a digital copy of the book.

Mark Pullinger lives in the Dearne Valley, walking distance to RSPB Old Moor and its satellite sites, where he walks with his wife daily. The philosophy outlined in this interview was conceived for his PhD thesis, The Speaking World, available on Loughborough University’s Institutional Repository. He has recently completed a poetry collection on Kafka and the natural world, making a style shift from his thesis, but still expressing the same worldview. The Speaking World is available at https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/The_speaking_world

You can also follow me on X - @cwjoneschris or on Bluesky - @cwjoneschris.bsky.social for more updates on future episodes.

Sparrow in Winter by Shinkichi Takahashi translated by Lucien Stryk Breastdown fluttering in the breeze, The sparrow’s full of air holes. Let the winds of winter blow, Let them crack a wing, two, The sparrow doesn’t care. The air streams through him, free, easy, Scattering feathers, bending legs. He hops calmly, from branch to empty branch In an absolutely spaceless world. I’d catch, skewer, broil you, But my every shot misses: you’re impossible. All at once there’s the sound Of breaking glass, and houses begin To crumple. Rising quickly, An atomic submarine nudges past your belly.

Untitled by Mark Pullinger Polar bear smells life kills spreading through her her cubs extending skies earth’s breath expanding sun’s reign

Magus by Mark Pullinger In a distant desert a lone speck crosses the horizon mumbling, “the desert has dignity moving through it”. Sand drifts across humps, clinging, rolling on.

Heat, like breath, rises, waves reaching skies. Camel’s eyes large distant suns.