Paul Batchelor on Niall Campbell and Frederick Seidel

I haven't read either of the collections being considered here, and having read Paul Batchelor's article, I don't suppose I'll be in any great hurry to do so, but full marks to him and the New Statesman for a review that says exactly what it means. More of the same, please.

Peter Riley on WS Graham

Peter Riley is as excellent as ever in The Fortnightly Review, talking about WS Graham, and specifically the New Selected Poems edited by Matthew Francis, the Selected Poems edited by Michael Hofmann, and The Caught Habits Of Language, a recent celebration of Graham's work which I reviewed for Magma and enjoyed a lot.

I found myself agreeing with most of what Riley says, especially about Hofmann's almost total rejection of Graham's earlier work, and indeed of the poetry of the 1940s generally, which feels lazy and unsubstantiated.

The sound of silence

I've only just got into the habit of downloading podcasts to listen to during my commute (yes, I'm years behind the times). A lot of the time it's Cricket – the Test Match Special podcast, Tuffers and Vaughan, or Tailenders.

But there's also The Verb, and this week's was excellent, looking at silences in poetry – coincidentally I'd started writing a poem on silence a couple of weeks back, so I listened with more than my usual interest. Ian McMillan, who's always a pleasure to listen to, was joined by poets Ilya Kaminsky, Julia Copus and Simon Armitage, and there's much to enjoy.

David Lynch interview

Nice interview with David Lynch here. I've long been a fan anyway, but he has all sorts of interesting things to say about art and creativity generally.