Nothing But The Poem - Caroline Bird

Our usual host, Sam Tongue, puts two poems by the wonderful Yorkshire poet Caroline Bird, under the groupchat microscope. Caroline Bird has published eight collections of poetry to date; usually to great acclaim, awards and rave reviews. Her latest collection, Ambush at Still Lake (Carcanet) has her trademark surreal wit, and is a kaleidoscope of startling imagery, lyrical unexpectedness, and is typically hard to classify, but so easy to fall in love with.

UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage said of her: "Bird is irrepressible; she simply explodes with poetry. The work erupts, spring-loaded, funny, sad, deadly - you don't know if a bullet will come out of the barrel or a flag with the word BANG on it."

Sam Tongue took his customary immersive dive into two poems from Ambush at Still Lake: RSVP and Cuckoo. Find out what Sam - and the Friends Of The SPL group - got from these poems in our Nothing But The Poem podcast.