The Poetry Exchange

Hello and welcome again to The Poetry Exchange!

We're so pleased to be back with you sharing more stories of connection between people and poems in their lives.

This month we have something very special to share with you: a live recording of our event at Latitude Festival in July 2025, celebrating Poems as Friends: The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology.

This was our third visit to Latitude Festival in Suffolk over the years, and it was incredibly special to be there with our anthology of Poems as Friends.

Michael Shaeffer hosts the event, along with our brilliant guests, poet Roy McFarlane and writer, artist and facilitator Hannah Jane Walker. Together, they read some of the stories and poems held in the pages of The Poetry Exchange Anthology, sharing these with a tent full of people at Latitude Festival 2025!

Massive thanks to Latitude Festival for hosting us and providing this recording, and to everyone who joined us on the day.

Poems as Friends: The Poetry Exchange 10th Anniversary Anthology is published by Quercus Editions and is available now widely in bookshops and online: www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk/anthology

Latitude Festival takes place this year on 23-26 July at Henham Park in Suffolk, UK.

We will be back with more conversations in our latest mini-series of 'Poems with Friends' in September...

With love,

John & The Poetry Exchange
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Hello friends

Welcome back for another episode in this 'mini-series' of The Poetry Exchange podcast - Poems with Friends.

In Poems with Friends, our producer John Prebble speaks with some of the amazing friends he has made through The Poetry Exchange over the last 12 years, inviting them to bring along a poem that's keeping them company at this time.

It's a way of catching up and spending some quality time with friends - over a poem, of course!

In this episode, John speaks with his great friend and co-producer of The Poetry Exchange, Sally Anglesea. Sally worked with Fiona, Michael and John on The Poetry Exchange from the project's very earliest years, nurturing Fiona's gorgeous idea of Poems as Friends into a wide range of experiences for people to enjoy. Sally, Fiona, Michael and John became a very close band of friends and colleagues, and Sally continues to deeply involved and right at the heart of The Poetry Exchange to this day.

Sally talks with John about a poem that has been a friend to her for many years, since she met it through The Poetry Exchange: 'Wild Geese' by Mary Oliver.

Thank you for listening,

John and The Poetry Exchange x
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Welcome back to The Poetry Exchange!

It's very special to be here with you all again.

We're excited to be returning with something a bit different...a 'mini-series' of conversations over the coming months, which we're calling 'Poems with Friends.'

In 'Poems with Friends', our Producer John Prebble catches up with some of the great friends he's made through working on The Poetry Exchange over the last 12 years. He invites each of his friends to speak with him 1:2:1 about a poem that's keeping them company at this time...a poem that's resonating for them and speaking to them now in some way. Together, they read the poem and have a conversation about it, as well as catching up and enjoying some quality time together!

In this first episode of 'Poems with Friends', John speaks with the brilliant Alison McManus. Alison has been a massive friend to and champion of The Poetry Exchange for many years, since she first walked into a chapel in Durham to talk about the poem that's been a friend to her with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer. Alison went on to become Chair of The Poetry Exchange as a small charity, and has been a vital part of our work and a great friend to so many of us over the years.

In this conversation, Alison catches up with John and talks with him about a poem that's keeping her company at this time: 'The Tyger' by William Blake.

We are looking forward to sharing more conversations in this 'mini-series' of Poems with Friends with you soon.

Thank you for listening,

John and The Poetry Exchange x
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Friends - it is our 100th episode!

We are so pleased to be here with you, sharing, listening, celebrating.

We have a very special conversation to mark the occasion: our very own Michael Shaeffer, host of The Poetry Exchange, talks about the poem that has been a friend to him - 'Having a Coke with You' by Frank O'Hara.

10 years...100 episodes...countless more poems, stories, converastions...and now Michael shares his story of connection with O'Hara's gorgeous poem.

We're thrilled and immensely grateful to Michael for sitting 'in the other chair' for this one, and sharing the story of his friendship so openly. You'll hear Michael in conversation with Roy McFarlane and Andrea Witzke Slot.

Our thanks to the Alfred A. Knopf and the Frank O'Hara estate for allowing us to share the poem with you, and to the South London Gallery for hosting the conversation.

Michael talks about his appearance in the re-staging of London Road at the National Theatre, which runs 7th - 21st June. Get your tickets while you can if you're in or around London during this time!

As Michael says in this episode, we will be taking a pause from the podcast for a while after this episode, having reached this extraordinary milestone. Michael will also be stepping back from hosting at this point, having co-hosted The Poetry Exchange with Fiona since the very beginning.

What an enormous journey it has been for Michael, for us all, and we are so grateful for all your friendship and support along the way.

The Poetry Exchange is continuing, and for now we will be focussing on some new collaborations that create live, intimate encounters between people and poems....something that has always been at the heart of The Poetry Exchange.

Keep in touch with us to find out more about as these new adventures as they unfold, including ways of being involved. You can sign up to our mailing list at www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk, follow us on Instagram @PoetryExch, or drop us a line any time on hello@thepoetryexchange.co.uk.

For now, thank you so much for being with us over the years...for all your love, support and companionship. Here's to living life filled with poems as friends.

Thank you for listening,

Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange Xx
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In this episode we talk with writer and academic Serena Trowbridge about the poem that's been a friend to her: 'A Shropshire Lad 31: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble' by A.E. Housman.

This conversation was recorded in April 2022 at the Birmingham & Midland Institute. It is very special to listen back to this converation now, particularly to hear Fiona with all her usual passion and insights in conversation with Serena.

Dr Serena Trowbridge is a writer and academic specialising in Pre-Raphaelitism in art and literature. She is Reader in Victorian Literature at Birmingham City University.

Serena is Vice-President and Chair of the Pre-Raphaelite Society, and Senior Vice-President at the Birmingham & Midland Institute. You can find her thoughts on art and literature on Substack.

Huge thanks to Serena for joining us for this conversation and allowing us to share it with you.

We are so grateful to you all for listening and for all your continuous support of The Poetry Exchange. This is episode 99 and we are looking forward to sharing our special 100th episode with you soon.

With love,

Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange
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