Elena Lappin, Mark Waldron, Gemma Ray, Matthew and Michael Dickman

Mark Waldron is a poet who also works in advertising. Where do the two disciplines meet for Mark? His latest collection ‘Meanwhile, Trees’ is published by Bloodaxe. Inhabiting lots of voices and characters, his often funny poems are full of comic imagery, but as Mark says, “The poems pretend they are joking, but they never really are”.

Matthew and Michael Dickman are twin brothers who are also both poets. Their work is very different; where Michael’s language is spare, Matthew’s is conversational. Michael is devoted to white space, Matthew loves the generosity of the list.  Faber have published a joint collection of their work ‘Brother’, in which they both examine a difficult event, the death of their older brother.

Multiple émigré Elena Lappin wrote ‘What Language Do I Dream In?’ (Virgao), a memoir which examines her life through the five languages she speaks. English has become the language she uses as a writer, but what happened to the other languages she speaks and how is her English informed by them?

Essex based singer-songwriter Gemma Ray performs songs from her new album ‘The Exodus Suite’ (Bronze Rat). The album was recorded over seven days in Berlin, in the old Tempelhof airport which was also being used to house refugees. Gemma tells Ian how that experience influenced the recording and caused her to reinterpret her own lyrics.