A special treat on this episode. Award winning poet Meryl Pugh reads her new poem "The Charcoal Bridle" due to appear in The Rialto this spring. She also discusses her influences, including the power of nature, and we explore the concept of "poetic territory" and what it means to the beginning writer.

Meryl leads "Creativity Jumpstart: Seeing With A Poet’s Eye" and "Poetry Boot Camp: Discovering New Territory" at Circle of Misse in July.

Meryl is a Jerwood/Arvon Young Poet, was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship and short-listed for the New Writing Ventures Poetry Prize. She has led writing workshops in museums, schools and prisons and was selected to participate in both the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Seminar, “To and From a First Collection” and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Masterclass in 2009. Her work has appeared in the anthologies: Entering the Tapestry (ed.s Mimi Khalvati and Graham Fawcett, 2003, Enitharmon) and Reactions 5 (ed. Clare Pollard, 2005, Pen and Ink Press). Reviews and poems have been published in various magazines, including the Guardian and most recently New Welsh Review and Poetry Review. A pamphlet collection, Relinquish, was published in 2007 by Arrowhead Press.

As always, if you like our theme music, it's called Acclimate from the album Cool Aberrations by General Fuzz. You can download it at www.magnatune.com

Enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening.