In this edition of the Granta podcast, Ted Hodgkinson interviews Sean Borodale, one of Granta’s New Poets. You can listen to the interview below, and read two poems by Sean Borodale here.
Photograph by Next Generation Poets
Ted Hodgkinson interviews Granta New Poet Sean Borodale.
In this edition of the Granta podcast, Ted Hodgkinson interviews Sean Borodale, one of Granta’s New Poets. You can listen to the interview below, and read two poems by Sean Borodale here.
Photograph by Next Generation Poets
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Sean Borodale was Northern Arts Fellow of the Wordsworth Trust in 1999 and Guest Artist at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam in 2002. From 2002-7 he was a teaching fellow at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. His long topographical work Notes for an Atlas was recommended by Robert Macfarlane in the Guardian Summer Books 2005. It was performed in 2007 at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, directed by Mark Rylance, as part of the first London Festival of Literature. Recent projects include Grey Matter with artist Jonathan Houlding which included a residency at the Fundacion Pilar i Joan Miro, Mallorca, 2009. Bee Journal, his debut full-length collection of poems, will be published by Jonathan Cape in July 2012.
More about the author →Ted Hodgkinson is the previous online editor at Granta. He was a judge for the 2012 Costa Book Awards’ poetry prize, announced earlier this year. He managed the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Tuscany, the affiliated Gregor Von Rezzori Literary Prize and still serves as an advisor. His stories have appeared in Notes from the Underground and The Mays and his criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He has an MA in English from Oxford and an MFA from Columbia.
More about the author →‘The incendiary elements that start my poems are often something I find shocking, but hopefully not gratuitous.’
‘To be honest, this is dark stuff; mud, tang / of bitter battery-tasting honey. The woods are in it.’
‘At night her friends let loose and relax.’
Photography by Vera Yijun Zhou of house parties and clubs in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
Our ten most popular pieces of memoir, criticism and reportage, including writing by Mary Gaitskill, Gary Indiana, Christian Lorentzen, Tao Lin and Sheila Heti.
Our ten most popular pieces of fiction this year, including work by J.M. Coetzee, Brandon Taylor and Miranda July.
‘I do not see / the slow wheels in my blood turning, but / I ride them’
Two poems by Emily Berry.
Granta magazine is run by the Granta Trust (charity number 1184638)
The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.