Longbarrow Press records poets in performance, on location and in conversation. Our Podcasts page showcases extended sequences, poetry walks, field recordings and collective performances created between 2008 and 2017. Click on the orange ‘Play’ button of each recording to listen.
Trig Points: The Hearth (2017)
Matthew Clegg
Matthew Clegg reads eight poems from the first section of his collection The Navigators. Poems: ‘Redbreast’, ‘The Host’, ‘Shoal’, ‘The Lake in the Trees’, ‘Under Orion, Midsummer’, ‘Two Fugitives’, ‘Punch’, ‘The Grate’. Recorded in Sheffield, 5 April 2017. Recorded and edited by Brian Lewis.
Contra Flow (March 2014)
Fay Musselwhite
The first ‘Contra Flow’ walk, led by Fay Musselwhite (with conservationist Graeme Hodgson), tracked several miles of the Rivelin Valley, north-west Sheffield, on 1 March 2014, with an audience of 20. This edited version of the walk presents the poems and discussions in the order in which they occurred. Poems: ‘Eggs’, ‘Moorhen’, ‘Pulling Balsam’, ‘Impasse’, ‘Boulder’, ‘Contra Flow’, ‘How Rivers Begin’, ‘Here I spill’ (all featured in Musselwhite’s debut collection). Recorded and edited by Brian Lewis.
At the Cholera Monument: Four Poems (2016)
Angelina D’Roza
Four poems from Envies the Birds, introduced and read by Angelina D’Roza: ‘To the Corner Shop and Back’, ‘Fairytale No. 9’, ‘Brutal Love’, ‘Marginalia’. Recorded at the foot of the Cholera Monument, Sheffield, Friday 20 May 2016.
Drift #1: Denaby Ings (2015)
Matthew Clegg
Matthew Clegg reads five poems from The Navigators in a bird hide on the edge of Denaby Ings nature reserve, South Yorkshire, 18 August 2015. Poems: ‘Brigand’, ‘Mexborough, Water-Fronted Properties Released’, ‘ANGLERS REQUIRE PERMITS’, ‘The Tang’, ‘When They Next Make You Redundant’. Recorded and edited by Brian Lewis for Longbarrow Press. Click here to read Lewis’s account of the visit to Denaby Ings.
The Exchange (2015)
Matthew Clegg, Angelina D’Roza, Pete Green, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite
A three-part collective performance at the Pop-Up Ruskin Museum, Sheffield, 30/09/15.
Part One: ‘How Rivers Begin’ (Fay Musselwhite), ‘Because I Was Nobody’ (Matthew Clegg), ‘Shifts’ (Angelina D’Roza), ‘To a Person Employed…’ (Pete Green), ‘Work’ (Chris Jones), ‘Days’ (Angelina D’Roza), ‘Lost Between Stations: 1’ (Matthew Clegg), ‘Grimsby’ (Pete Green), ‘Goat Boy staggers on’ (Fay Musselwhite), ‘Home’ (Chris Jones).
Part Two: The five poets introduce and read work by precursors and influences (illuminating the themes of labour, currency & reciprocity). Emily Dickinson, ‘I dwell in Possibility…’ (Angelina D’Roza), Kevin MacNeil, ‘painting trees’ (Pete Green), Gary Snyder, ‘Hay For the Horses’ (Chris Jones), Philip Levine, ‘Innocence’ (Fay Musselwhite), Thom Gunn, ‘All Do Not All Things Well’ (Chris Jones), Ted Hughes, ‘Her Husband’ (Fay Musselwhite), John Clare, ‘The Mores’ (Pete Green), JH Prynne, ‘Moon Poem’ (Angelina D’Roza), Louis MacNeice, ‘Autumn Journal: III’ (Matthew Clegg).
Part Three: ‘Vultures’ (Angelina D’Roza), ‘Hoopoe’s Cuckoo Song’ (Matthew Clegg), ‘Factory’ (Fay Musselwhite), ‘Amber’ (Pete Green), ‘The Workshop’ (Chris Jones), ‘To The Corner Shop and Back’ (Angelina D’Roza), ‘Bridges’ (Chris Jones), ‘To John Clare’ (Pete Green), ‘Here I Spill’ (Fay Musselwhite), ‘Meadowhall’ (Chris Jones), ‘Li Po’s Letter to Rumi’ (Matthew Clegg).
A Navigation with Matthew Clegg and Ray Hearne (2015)
‘A Navigation’, led by Matthew Clegg and songwriter Ray Hearne, tracked several miles of the South Yorkshire Navigation between Mexborough and Conisbrough on 24 May 2015, accompanied by an audience of 25. Songs and poems: ‘Hurtle Through A Portal’ (Hearne), ‘Ballad Of The Wandering Navvy’ (Clegg), ‘The Navvy Boys’ (Hearne), ‘The Wheat Horse’, ‘The Sink Hole’ (Clegg), ‘The Last Of The Alley-Gaters’ (Hearne), ‘The Passage’, ‘Anglers Require Permits’ (Clegg), ‘Rother Sing A Don Song’ (Hearne), ‘Mexborough, Water-Fronted Properties Released’, ‘When They Next Make You Redundant’ (Clegg), ‘Long Hot Summer’ (Hearne), ‘Brigand’, ‘Mexborough Quad Bandits’ (Clegg), ‘East Of Abdy’ (Hearne). Recorded and edited by Brian Lewis for Longbarrow Press.
Death and the Gallant (2014)
Chris Jones
A series of three podcasts documenting a one-day tour of churches in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire made by Emma Bolland, Chris Jones and Brian Lewis (in the traces of Jones’s Reformation-era sequence ‘Death and the Gallant’). Click here to read the short essays accompanying the podcasts (illustrated with photos by Bolland).
1. Recorded at St. Mary Magdalene church, Newark-on-Trent, 19 September 2014.
2. Recorded at St Andrew’s, Pickworth, Lincolnshire, 19 September 2014.
3. Recorded at St John the Evangelist’s, Corby Glen, Lincolnshire, 19 September 2014.
West North East: Fugues #1-3 (2013-2014)
Matthew Clegg
A series of three podcasts focusing on poems from the first section of Matthew Clegg’s collection West North East, recorded between March 2013 and May 2014.
Fugue #1: Hillsborough (2013)
A walk through North Sheffield shortly after a heavy snowfall. Matthew Clegg reads and introduces ‘This Place is Part of Me’, ‘Fishing by the Trunk Road’, ‘The Convalescent’ and ‘The Vantage’. Recorded on location in Hillsborough, Sheffield, on 26 March 2013.
Fugue #2: Flamborough (2013)
Matthew Clegg reads the poems ‘Out Far and In Deep’ and ‘The Power-line’ (from West North East). Recorded in Bempton and Flamborough, East Yorkshire, on the evening of Friday 19 July and the morning of Saturday 20 July.
Fugue #3: Crossgates (2014)
Matthew Clegg reads the poems ‘Because I was Nobody’, ‘Blood and Ice Cream’ and ‘The Last Workday Before Christmas’ (from West North East). Recorded on location in Crossgates, East Leeds, West Yorkshire, Friday 2 May 2014.
The Spirit is a Bone (2013)
Paul Evans and Chris Jones
An edited version of the discussion led by artist Paul Evans and poet Chris Jones to mark the opening of their new exhibition, ‘The Spirit is a Bone’, at Derby Museum and Art Gallery on 25 May 2013. The exhibition comprised new drawings and poems based on the various natural history specimens sited at the Museum.
Winter Songs 3: Journey and Exile (2013)
Matthew Clegg, Angelina D’Roza, Andrew Hirst, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite
Part three of ‘Winter Songs’, an evening of readings at The Fat Cat, Sheffield, Sunday 20 January 2013. Poems: Journey of the Magi – TS Eliot (read by Chris Jones);
St Hilary’s Exile – Angelina D’Roza; Welund’s Lament – Andrew Hirst; There’s a certain slant of light… – Emily Dickinson (read by Angelina D’Roza); Out Far and In Deep – Matthew Clegg
; Night Song of the Personal Shadow – Gyorgy Petri (read by Andrew Hirst)
; Impasse – Fay Musselwhite; Ovidian – Peter Reading (read by Matthew Clegg).
Hello Dolly (2012)
Andrew Hirst
Andrew Hirst discusses the poems in his triptych ‘Hello Dolly’. A robust defence of Hirst’s aesthetic, animated by his uncompromising views on Robert Browning, Patty Hearst and Teddy Kennedy; politics and poetics; and the (mis)management of culture. All poem-excerpts from Hirst’s ‘Chappaquiddick, 1980’ (the second poem in ‘Hello Dolly’). Recorded in Sheffield, 26 June 2012.
Cave Time and Sea Changes (2012)
Matthew Clegg
Matthew Clegg reads and comments on a sequence of twelve poems (featured in his collection The Navigators). Recorded in a sea cave at the North Landing, Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire, 19 September 2012. Recorded, edited and sequenced by Brian Lewis. Photography by Karl Hurst.
Sideways & Familiar (2009)
Andrew Hirst and Chris Jones
Recorded in several locations in and around Sheffield city centre, Sunday 13 September 2009. This sequence was issued as a limited 3″ CD and presented to the audience for the poetry walk led by Andrew Hirst and Chris Jones on 17 October 2009. The walk began at the main train station in Sheffield (with readings in the goods yard), continuing to Brown Street (via a stepped passageway) for a further reading, on to a semi-enclosed space adjacent to FirstPoint (near Norfolk Street) for the third reading, through the Winter Gardens and into Upper Chapel courtyard for the fourth reading, past Sheffield Cathedral and down a side street for the fifth reading, and through a series of narrow passageways opening into Paradise Square for the final reading (where the poets were accompanied by the musician Kerry McMullen on violin).
The river, the road (2008)
Matthew Clegg and Chris Jones
Recorded around and along the River Don, Sheffield, 28 September 2008. This sequence was issued as a limited 3″ CD and given away to the audience for the poetry walk led by Matthew Clegg and Chris Jones on 1 November 2008. The walk began at Blonk Street NCP and followed the River Don north (with several detours and interruptions) for an hour-and-a-half before finishing in Neepsend. Poems featured: ‘Wicker’, ‘The Factory’, ‘Kingfishers’, ‘Drift’, ‘Neepsend’, ‘Dun’, ‘Bridges’, ‘East’ and ‘Otter Cliff’ by Chris Jones; Watchers’, ‘Sirens’, ‘Attercliffe’ and ‘Edgelands’ (extracts) by Matthew Clegg.
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