Beyond the Verse - Beyond the Verse: A Year in Review

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

In this week’s episode of “Beyond the Verse,” the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, Joe and Maiya celebrate the show’s one-year anniversary, reflecting on the journey so far, the lessons learned, and the evolving style of their in-depth poetry discussions.They share listener questions, revealing their proudest moments, favorite episodes, and the poets who have surprised them most over the past twelve months. From early highlights like Danez Smith’s episode to thematic deep dives on Yeats’ The Second Coming and intimate encounters with Mamang Dai’s Small Towns and the River, Joe and Maiya explore how the podcast has reshaped their own reading habits and appreciation for poetry.Get exclusive Poetry PDFs from the episodes mentioned, available to Poetry+ users.Plus, hear about Season 3’s exciting plans — from Langston Hughes’ 'Mother to Son' and Browning’s 'My Last Duchess' to an opening episode on Japanese poetry and national identity.Tune in and Discover:How the podcast evolved into a conversational, collaborative formatFavorite episodes and underappreciated gems from Seasons 1 and 2Poets and works that changed Joe and Maiya’s perspectivesWhat’s next for “Beyond the Verse” in its second yearSend us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by Poemanalysis.com and Poetry Plus. I'm Maya and I'm here today with my co-host Joe to tell us a little bit about the special episode we're doing today. Thanks, Maya. So believe it or not, it is actually an entire year since we started recording episodes of Beyond the Verse. July the 8th, 2024, that hallowed day. And we are so privileged to still be here. We've got so much more to discuss today. And also we're going to be talking a little bit about what we're going to be bringing to you over the coming weeks and months. And I can't wait to get into that with you, Meyer. But yeah, we want to kick off today by reflecting a little bit on the past year, looking

forward to what comes next and, you know, chatting a little bit about what we've learned along the way. Now, we actually put out a call for some of our users to ask some questions. And I've got one to kick off with you, Meyer. So what one of our users wants to know is, what have you learned over the past 12 months of being on beyond the verse? That's such a big question. You know, it's one of those where I think when we first started, Joe, and I'm sure you'd agree, it felt a little bit more like we were approaching this from an educational standpoint.

You know, we both left university with master's degrees, so we were used to a certain kind of analysis. What I wasn't expecting is that over the last year, I mean, between even just us, it's become more conversational. We've allowed a little bit of our personal bias to kind of get into the poems. And I think that's made it a little bit richer. I was quite nervous when we were first starting the podcast. Obviously, this was our first podcast for both of us.

I was nervous that maybe I shouldn't show as much emotion or preference towards certain styles of poetry, but it makes it richer. I think, you know, you and I disagree on certain things or we can pull in our own personal experience and how that impacts our reception of the poem. So I think what I've learned is to be almost a little bit more intimate with the poem, a little bit more emotional,

on just be a bit more open and, you know, from the feedback that we get from listeners, I think that does shine through a little bit. But I'd love to know what you've learned. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that more conversational style and it's been great to hear that listeners have been enjoying that. I certainly really enjoy it. I think what I've learned above all, as a, all of our listeners will have learned as well is how much better Meyer is than me. No. No, I think on a serious note, that notion that we each have something to bring to the table and they are distinct. I mean, there are things that you will spot in a poem that I just won't think of and I'm you know hopefully there are things vice versa as well and I think the mesh

of that conversation where you bring something to the table I bring something distinct and actually we kind of hash it out in the episode is where I learn the most it's kind of the edge of my knowledge and the edge of yours I think is where it works really well and just on a practical sense I think I guess one of the things I've learned about being involved in the podcast is the team behind it that makes it function so a massive shout out to the whole team at permanence.com who helped get the podcast cast ready to go? Absolutely. It's like you say, it's a collaborative practice. It's a case of bringing it to the table, discussing it, actually pulling out those tiny little things that neither us will have noticed, taking it to the team, editing it, processing it. There's so much more that

goes behind a single episode than, you know, us just enjoying a poem or reading it for the first time. But just to kind of jump off of that, one of the other questions we had from our lovely listeners was, what are you most proud of? I mean, it's been a year and we've had some amazing growth. Well, look back at those early weeks and months of the podcast, summer 2024, you know, we had a small and dedicated listenership and we were delighted to have them and I hope many of them are still with us. But the growth of the podcast has been really exciting and it really does, you know, it's a great privilege to be able to talk about something that you and I are really passionate about and find an audience for that and find people who share that passion and perhaps even inspire a new passion in some listeners. I mean, we've had tens of thousands of downloads over the past 12 months. we've had listeners in, you know, more than 190 countries. So if anybody in Tuvalu is listening, you know, please download the podcast. We need to get up to 200. But on a serious note,

it's, it really is a privilege to put out this passion project, this thing that we really believe in every week and, and to see people around the world liking, commenting, subscribing, responding, telling us they found it interesting. It never ceases to make me feel proud. What about you, Meyer? I'm absolutely seconding that. You know, it's kind of unexpected. I think when we both started the podcast, we were excited by, you know, 100, 200, 300, listeners. And to see that grow over the last year has been incredible and also a little bit surreal, you know, at the end of the day, we are just two people talking about something that we absolutely love. So to share that experience feels really special.

Now, I'm going to give you a tricky one, Maya, because one of our listeners wants to know, do you have a favourite episode across our first two series of Beyond the Verses? I know it's like picking between your children. But what are you going to go for? It's every single one, Joe. It's every single one. To be honest, I'm going to have to give a shout out to one of my personal favourite poets. And someone whose episode, I think, was a little bit underappreciated because we let it out so early, you know, and we were still building our listenership. And that's Dana Smith's inconsistent miracles episode that we did. I mean, Dear White America is just one of the best poems. I think I've ever had the opportunity to read and to, you know, listen aloud to.

I mean, I love Danes Smith. I think their writing is just absolutely fantastic. And I'm sure that as people are kind of picking up the podcast, they're maybe starting from a little bit later on. I would massively recommend listeners to go and go back to that episode. I think it was season one, episode three. So when I say early on, I mean early. But that was just a brilliant episode.

And I loved talking about Dennis Smith. Absolutely loved it. But Joe, what's your favorite? Well, it's a very, very good choice. And, I mean, I was really tussling over a few options. but I think the one that I look back on and just really, really enjoyed the most was our episode on William Butler 8 is the second coming. I mean, that was an episode that I really felt like I could have carried on talking for hours

with you. It was such a fascinating poem, so resonant in the 21st century and yet so specifically tied to its period, so influential the number of works that have derived their titles from that poem. And, you know, I did my master's, as many of our listeners will know, in Irish literally. here in Dublin. So Yates has a real place in my heart. And I absolutely love discussing that poem with you on that episode of the podcast, which I believe was also season one. It's funny that we're both saying season one. I feel like I'm going to have to give a season two answer. I mean,

maybe, do you know what actually tracked pretty high for me was our episode that we did on Mamang Dai, small towns in the river? I think it was the first time that, you know, I'd really read much of Malang Dai's work. And I think actually the intimacy of that poem surprised me quite a lot. It was one that, you know, the second coming is a great example. There's a certain scale to it feels big and we had a lot to talk about. And for any listeners that have been kind of with us from the start, when Joe and I have done previous Q&A's, we've kind of explained behind the scenes of how we go about actually putting the podcast together.

And one of the things we usually do is we have a bit of a pre-catcher. A lot of our conversation comes out of, you know, just a general reading of the poem, but we do have certain points that we always like to hear. And with the second coming, it was so chunky. I remember we had like pages and pages of notes that we wanted to talk about. And obviously we couldn't condense all of that into one episode. But with Mamang Dies, I felt like we had a much looser structure because it's such, I mean, that poem is beautiful. But it really surprised me the way our conversation went with that.

And that was, I mean, it was our last episode, I believe, right? I think that's right. Yeah. And actually, this follows on to another one of our listener questions who wanted to know, is there anything that surprised you about making the podcast? any writers that you didn't know perhaps or anyone that you've rediscovered an affection for and I would really encourage anyone who hasn't already listened to that episode

on Mamang Dai's poem to go and check it out because that for me was the one where it wasn't a writer I had massive prior experience with and this is the brilliance of the podcast from our point of view as well not just for the listeners that we get to discover something new, a distinct voice from a different part of the world

perhaps that Maya and I are from and I loved that episode but what about you Maya has anything surprised you? Any poets that have kind of moved larger in your imagination since we did the podcast on them? I mean, it's funny that we actually keep saying to the listeners like, oh, as I'm sure you'll know, because my master's was also in modern literature, it was in modern poetry. And I must admit, as with many of our listeners, I'm sure, learnt the World War poets all the way back when I was at school and kind of then neglected to read them ever again until we started

talking about the podcast and doing them on that. So when it came to doing our mini-series on the World War I poets, I was a little bit nervous because I was taught them in like a very rigid way and I just really didn't appreciate them at the time. I think the way that, you know, they were taught in school just didn't appeal to me at the time at all. But having a chance to really revisit them with a fresh perspective was really nice. And I think there was a skill to some of those poems that I was kind of ignorant of

because I was just in the mindset of like, oh, I don't like those. older poems. I'm not interested in reading them. But actually, the way that, you know, each poet is kind of in correspondence with the other was really fascinating. And I really enjoyed finding those links again, you know, doing that deep dive. It's, it's something we talk about all the time on the pot. But it's interesting that you ask that because what it made me think about is how it's changed my, my appreciation of kind of poets that maybe I wouldn't have looked at before. And one of the questions we had from one of our listeners was, as doing the podcast actually changed how we approach certain poems, certain poets, and has it for you?

That's a really, really good question. I think, I think, yes, in a couple of ways. I think knowing that we have, you know, a poem by a particular poet, which is normally the way we do our episodes. Of course, we do do other episodes as well, like you mentioned, the World War I Poets where we structure an episode around a poet rather than a single poem, but oftentimes we are dealing with a single poem. But I'm not particularly good as some of our regular listeners will know at kind of stopping at the point where I need to. So I, you know, like a rabbit hole experience as I describe it. So if I know we're doing a particular poem by a particular poet, the likelihood is that my reading will then be dominated by that author

for the next week or two. I tend to read kind of voraciously on a single topic at a time. But I think in terms of the way that I approach it in our discussions, it's been really lovely to rediscover that collaborative analysis. And what I mean by that is you know, before we do the podcast and I still do this, I'm a tutor, so I tutor lots of students one to one

who are preparing for exams normally in the UK and, you know, inevitably whilst those conversations are really fruitful and sometimes a student says something that surprises you, there is much more of a I am the teacher you are the student, you know, it's a bit of a one-way street. Whereas the thing I really enjoyed about my time

of university, both in Dublin and my undergraduate degree at York and kind of really good A-level classes that I was involved in for international listeners. That means, you know, the last couple of years of school was collaboration, was a group of like-minded people who share a love of a particular poem or play or novel, but all bring something distinct. And being able to do that with you every week has been absolutely wonderful, because like I said, we might have moments where our interests cross over, but there are also interests that deviate and there are life experiences that are different and our world views are different. And all of that kind of goes into the melting part of our discussions. And I find that to be the

most rewarding part of doing the podcast. I couldn't agree more. And it's, it's so nice to hear you say that as well, because it's exactly what I think. You know, sometimes now when I'm approaching new poems or new poets, I'm actually almost reading it and going, okay, yeah, this is what I think. But actually, Joe would probably say this about it or he'd maybe like pick up on this specific thing. I mean, there's been so many times where we've been sat in a podcast and we've recording. And I can't remember which episode it was now, but there was one where you started talking about the pantheon of gods that was kind of involved in that episode. And it was just something that I hadn't even picked up on. So it's, it's really lovely to, I almost feel like

we have that community. And I know, you know, before this episode, we were talking about the fact that, you know, we love poetry. And I think that's very evident in the podcast. It obviously comes across. I mean, we do a poetry podcast. But in our kind of friendship groups, there's obviously people that are going to appreciate poetry, but there's a certain level where, you know, I almost feel, and I'm sure you feel the same way that by talking to the audience and the listeners that are like actually tuning into us, we're kind of building that community. And there's people that are responding to us. So I would love to know if people disagree with some of the points that we make, you know,

we're only two people. And I'm sure that in a lot of the ways that our worldviews kind of alive, there's going to be someone sat there going, why didn't you say this about this specific poem? Like, I'm desperate for you to say something. So, you know, I massively encourage any listeners to reach out to us. And if there's a poem that, you know, you think we could even reanalyze, there's a poet that we could look at. And we've said one thing about them,

but actually they have another poem that completely disagrees with our whole episode. Like, tell us. I'm so desperate to kind of create that conversation because poetry isn't just a solo sport, right? You're reading it, and it's so deeply intimate. And of course, you are always going to pull your own expression from any poem that you read. And you're always going to have your favorites, which leads me on to my next question very shortly. But I think it's really important to know that poetry can be a group exercise.

You can actually have some amazing conversations and some amazing discussions that come out of, you know, a single line or a single phrase or something that you just find really beautiful, you know. But as I say, it leads me on to my next question, Joe, which I think, you're really going to struggle with. Who do you want to have on the podcast that you go, I have been waiting for this day? Wow. How long have you got? I mean... All the time in the world. What a question. I think... My goodness, I know who you're going to say, but we'll come to that. I think for any listeners who haven't already gone and checked out our previous episode that we did with Christy Frederick Docherty, it was a really, really interesting

conversations. Great to have a third voice in the podcast. And Chrissy came on to talk about the book she edited with a wonderful group of poets from around the world, responding to the songs of Taylor Swift, a really fascinating episode, a kind of blend of popular culture and poetry. So anyone who hasn't checked out that previous guest episode, I suggest you go and do that. And this is my way of buying time to consider your question. I think I'm going to narrow it down to two, which I know is cheating. I think John Cooper Clark, the punk poet of Northern England, without doubt, one of the most charismatic, funny human beings alive.

Great choice. And of course, the writer of one of the great love ballads of modern times. I want to be yours. So, John, if you're listening, we'd love to talk to you. But I think, I think Worson Shire, I would love to speak to. Her collection, blessed the daughter, raised by a voice in her head, absolutely blew me away when I read it a couple of years ago. she is without doubt one of the most talented writers out there right now so i would love to get her

on the podcast so warson john separately together if you're listening we'd love to speak to you but mya having put me through the agony of that question can you tell us who your dream guest on beyond the verse would be i mean again it's going to be one of those any regular listeners will know my answer is the same every single time ocean wrong for me is just my absolute favorite i would honestly just love a chance to be in the same room and ask a single question, never mind have a fully fledged podcast. But he is one of the few people. I mean, I've listened to some of his other podcasts and interviews that he's done. And I just think the way that he talks about life experience is just so immediately a poetic, you know, aside from the collections. But I've been

very happy recently to see him getting his flowers. He's released his second novel, which is absolutely incredible. It's been on Oprah. It's been on all of the book clubs. So I am very happy about that. And I'm hoping that the next stock is beyond the verse. Well, Ocean, you heard it here first. We'd love to speak to you. I mean, Maya and I share a love for Ocean for Wong's poetry and his prose. So we'd love to have him on. I mean, there are so many people out there. I think that's one of the things that I've really reflected on is that the more you scratch, the more you find. I mean, there is just a plethora of poets writing right now. And some of them are already kind of becoming household names,

but a great many of them will be household names in the future but are not yet. It's the kind of one of the strange things about being an artist is that oftentimes the moment you get your recognition, it's too late. But there are so many people we'd love to speak to. So get in touch. And I also like to take this as an opportunity to say, you know, if you are a new poet, if you've just released a collection, if you want to talk about it, please do send us a message. We'd love to firstly read some new poetry. I think it's such an amazing opportunity. But also, we'd love to have you. you as a guest, to talk about what poetry means to you, what the collection kind of came from. So get in touch with us, send us your collection, and hopefully we can have a chat. Now, whether or not you're a poet or just a dedicated listener to be on the verse, or indeed

a new listener to be on the verse, that we had lots of questions about how best to follow the podcast going forwards. So a little bit of admin, I suppose, the easiest way to follow the podcast is, of course, to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, whether it's Apple or Spotify. We're also launching a social media platform. so you'll be able to find us on Instagram at beyondtheverse. Podcast and of course our most dedicated listeners who are poetry plus subscribers will get additional podcast related material in the weekly newsletter that goes out every Saturday. But Joe, aside from that very exciting update, can you tell us a little bit about what's

coming up in season three in our second year of the podcast? Well, from one exciting update to another, season three, we've been planning it for a little while now and it will be coming very soon. And we cannot wait to bring you these episodes. We've got such an eclectic mix of episodes planned for you, including individual poem episodes on things like Mother to Son by Lankson Hughes, My Last Duchess by Robert Browning. But we've also got bigger, kind of more thematic episodes, deep diving on particular poetic forms like the ode form. But we're kicking it all off with a really interesting new type of episode.

Season three, episode one will be all about Japanese poetry, talking about the relationship between the art of a nation and the nation itself, how different cultural, linguistic and historical influences shape a national literature. I for one cannot wait to have that conversation with you, Maya, and I'm sure our listeners can't wait to hear it. So yeah, so much you look forward to in season three, but between now and then, if you want to go back into the archives, maybe one of the poems that Maya and I have mentioned from season one or two has inspired you today. So go back, rate and review the podcast, like and subscribe, wherever you get them, recommend

it to friends and family, follow us on social media, and we'll be back with you very soon. But until then, it's goodbye from me. And goodbye from me and the whole team at Poemanalysis.com and Poetry Plus. Until next time.