(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(04:21) – Mary O'Malley interview
(52:30) – Southword poem, The Burial of Ten-to Two Blue by Paul McMahon

Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara, and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at the Universidade Nova there. She served several years on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the Cúirt International Poetry Festival for eight years. She was the author of its educational programme. She has published nine books of poetry, including Valparaiso arising out of her Residency on the national marine research ship. Her latest Collection, The Shark Nursery, is published by Carcanet.

This week's Southword poem is 'The Burial of Ten-to Two Blue' by Paul McMahon, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(03:04) – Aifric Mac Aodha interview
(42:06) – Southword poem, Mermaid Archipelago by Patrick Chapman

Aifric Mac Aodha was born in 1979. Her first collection, Gabháil Syrinx, was published in 2010. She has taught in St Petersburg, New York and Canada and has lectured in old and modern Irish at UCD. She lives in Dublin where she works for the Irish-language publisher, An Gúm. She was the winner of the Oireachtas Prize for Poetry (2017) and was Irish-Language Writer-in-Residence at Dublin City University (DCU) in 2023. She has published two bilingual collections with The Gallery Press and Aifric’s Irish-language poems are translated into English by David Wheatley. Foreign News was published in 2017 and her new collection Old Friends in 2024.

This week's Southword poem is 'Mermaid Archipelago' by Patrick Chapman, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(06:39) – Isabelle Baafi interview
(40:41) – Southword poem, Aching Embouchure by Ellen Zhang

Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) Recommendation, and Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020), which won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her writing has been published in Granta, the TLS, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, The London Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and an Obsidian Foundation Fellow. She edits at Poetry London and Magma.

This week's Southword poem is 'Aching Embouchure' by Ellen Zhang, which appears in issue 45. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(08:38) – Gerry Murphy interview
(47:21) – Southword poem, Mrs. Violet Club by Polina Cosgrave

Gerry Murphy is an Irish poet, born in Cork in 1952. His first poetry collection was A Small Fat Boy Walking Backwards (1985, 1992). He has since published many collections with The Dedalus Press including Rio de la Plata and All That (1993), The Empty Quarter (1995), Extracts from the Lost Log-Book of Christopher Columbus (1999), Torso of an Ex-Girlfriend (2002), My Flirtation with International Socialism (2010), Muse (2015) and The Humours of Nothingness (2020). He has published two chapbooks with Southword Editions, Kissing Maura O’Keeffe (2019) and My Life as a Stalinist (2018). Murphy’s poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Well Review and The Future (Arlen House, 2018). Pocket Apocalypse, his translations of the Polish poet Katarzyna Borun-Jagodzinska, appeared in 2005 from Southword Editions. Murphy’s own poems form the basis for a live poetry-and-music show by Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, entitled The People’s Republic of Gerry Murphy, which ran at the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival in 2010 to considerable critical success.

This week's Southword poem is 'Mrs. Violet Club' by Polina Cosgrave, which appears in issue 45. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(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 Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. Her 2014 essay collection, The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults, is widely regarded as a visionary work of eco-criticism. She lives in South Bend, Indiana and teaches at Notre Dame.

This week's Southword poem is 'Another Beginning' by Triin Paja, which appears in issue 45. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(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 Magazine, and Best American Poetry. She’s received fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks Service, the Academy of American Poets, and Purdue Archives and Special Collections to study the lost poem drafts of Amelia Earhart. She’s the current poet laureate for the State of Kansas.

This week's Southword poem is 'The Orange' by Viviana Fiorentino, shortlisted for the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

(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 Times and has published numerous translations, critical essays, reviews and screenplays. He has been Writer in Residence in Galway City and County, Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and is a member of Aosdána. His most recent project, Liberty Hall, was released in 2021.

This week's Southword poem is 'Before I stillbirthed the birch' by Katie Griffiths, winner of the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.