Poetry and the Turning World: Food

Poetry and the Turning World: Food

Author: The London Review of Books July 5, 2026 Duration: 1:23:29
The most popular modern food poem is probably William Carlos Williams’s ‘This Is Just to Say’, in which the speaker confesses to eating the plums his wife was saving for breakfast. Food has often been a means for poetry to represent intimate relationships, but, as Sarah and Sandeep explore in this episode, it has also provided ways of thinking about alienation, societal change, survival and displacement. In Tony Harrison’s 'V.', supermarkets and food providers become central motifs in a discussion of Britain’s changing landscapes; Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart uses the memory of a grandfather planting yogurt under a tree as a means of understanding the aftermath of Partition; and in Yousif M. Qasmiyeh’s ‘Communion’, set in the Beddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, lentils become part of a living archive through which experiences are transmitted across generations. Read Tony Harrison's 'V.' in the LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n01/tony-harrison/v Get 25% off a 12-month subscription to Close Readings with the code ’POETRY25’ at checkout here: https://lrb.me/crpoetry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Adam Tooze: Electrostates, Petrostates and the New Cold War [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:11
China is racing ahead in electrification, while the US turns its back on green energy in favour of a new era of fossil fuel machismo. An alignment between the three major petrostates – the US, Saudi Arabia and Russia – n…
Travel with Close Readings: ‘The Travels of Sir John Mandeville’ [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:52
To continue our summer of travel with Close Readings, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley look at the medieval bestseller The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The fictional traveller’s fantastical descriptions of differen…
The long history of Black voter suppression in the US [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:41
In April this year, the US Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's voting map on the grounds that state lawmakers had violated the constitution by creating a second district with a majority of Black voters. This was follow…
On Politics: Burnham’s First Week [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:44
Andy Burnham’s early promises to end rough sleeping and sort out social care won’t surprise anyone who’s followed his political career, but his apparent interest in the structures of Whitehall was less expected. To discu…
Nolan v. Homer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:02
It could be argued that Christopher Nolan has been remaking the Odyssey for his whole career, and his latest film revisits many of the themes of his earlier movies, as once again a male protagonist embarks on a desperate…
Palantir and the NHS [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:06
The US tech giant Palantir ‘holds public contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds in everything from financial regulation to local government’, Peter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin wrote recently in the LRB. The newslett…
On Politics: The US at 250 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:20
Would the Founding Fathers recognise the modern United States as the republic they declared in 1776? The nation formed from Britain’s North American colonies has become the most powerful and prosperous in the world, but…
Poetry and the Turning World: Money [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:32
In the sixth episode of their series, Sarah and Sandeep look at poems that explore the complexities of money and its metaphorical power: Frederick Seidel’s ‘In Late December’ starts with an image of degradation in the sy…
Among the Private Spies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:29
The Trump-Russia dossier, leaked to the press in 2017, contained multiple allegations of collusion between the US president and Putin, including reports of meetings between Kremlin officials and members of Trump’s campai…
On Politics: The Andy Burnham Show [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:31
Andy Burnham will soon become the UK’s seventh prime minister since 2010 and will face many of the same problems that defeated his predecessors, not least the UK’s stubbornly weak economy. To dissect the collapse of the…