Samuel Tongue

Hello and welcome to Nothing But The Poem.

Well, hello and welcome to our regular Nothing But The Poem podcast.

My name is Sam Tang.

I'm the project coordinator here at the Scottish Poetry Library.

And the poet that we're going to look at in today's NBTP is Robin Robertson.

well-known Scottish poet with multiple collections to his name.

But interestingly, the long take, the substantial long poem that he wrote a few years back now was actually the first poem to be ever shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Hopefully not the last, but it was a very unique way of getting onto the Booker Prize shortlist.

So we're going to be looking at a couple of poems today by Robin Robertson.

The two poems that we looked at were Cat Failing and Swimming in the Woods.

We'll post the links to those poems on the podcast so that you can go to them and read them yourselves and see if our interpretations make any sense.

But I'll also say which website they're on.

So this first poem, Cat Failing, is on the Poetry Foundation website if you would like to follow along as we read.

I'll read it through the first time.

Cat Failing

A figment.

A thumbed maquette of a cat.

Some ditched plaything, something brought in from outside.

His white fur, stiff and grey, coming apart at the seams.

I study the muzzle of perished rubber, one ear eaten away, his sour body lumped like a beanbag leaking thinly into a grim towel.