Jane Commane on Start the Week & Planet Poetry
Poet and publisher Jane Commane’s first full collection Assembly Lines, published in February 2018 by Bloodaxe, echoes the life of post-industrial towns and cities of the Midlands. It was longlisted for the 2019 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize.
JANE COMMANE INTERVIEW ON PLANET POETRY
Planet Poetry podcast: Lost trades | Lost songs - with Jane Commane, Episode 12, Season 4, Thursday 4 July 2024
Poet and Nine Arches Press publisher Jane Commane was interviewed on Planet Poetry podcast of 4 July 2024. She was in conversation with co-host Robin Houghton, and spoke about her debut collection Assembly Lines, which was published by Bloodaxe in 2018. Jane also spoke about her work as publisher of Nine Arches Press, and about her own work in progress.
Jane read and introduced her poems ‘Fabrikgeist', ‘Midlands kids,’, ‘How the Town Lost Its Song’, ‘On Discovery’, ‘Odds On’, ‘UnWeather’ and ‘Poem in which a small dog looks into the sun’ from Assembly Lines.
‘… for me, the book felt like an extended love song-cum-elegy to the area where you grew up.’ – Robin Houghton, Planet Poetry, introducing Assembly Lines
‘Grip the square steering wheel of your Austin Allegro and let Jane Commane navigate you through the haunted places of the post-industrial Midlands. She treats us to poems from Assembly Lines published by Bloodaxe including ‘UnWeather’, quite possibly the best Brexit response we've heard.
We upload this episode on the day of the UK's General Election... So as well as sprinting to the polling stations, we take a moment to delve into the idea of political poetry. Peter reads 'I Woke Up' by Jameson Fitzpatrick a fine example of how the personal is political, and Robin revisits Adrian Mitchell's poem ‘To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam)’. But thanks to Danusha Laméris's poem ‘Small Kindnesses’ from her collection Bonfire Opera our faith in humanity is rapidly restored.’
‘To Whom It May Concern (Tell Me Lies About Vietnam)’ is included in the late Adrian Mitchell’s Come On Everybody: Poems 1953-2008 (2012). Danusha Laméris's ‘Small Kindnesses’ is included in the 2020 Bloodaxe anthology Staying Human. There was also a mention for previous Planet Poetry podcast interviewee Helen Ivory, congratulating her on her recent Cholmondeley Award (from 49:04). Adrian Mitchell’s poem was introduced at 00:58.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1414696/15360997-lost-trades-lost-songs-with-jane-commane
INTERVIEW ON BBC RADIO 4's START THE WEEK
Jane Commane was a guest on Start the Week, Radio 4’s flagship weekly discussion programme, on 21 May 2018. Fellow guests on the programme were Mariana Mazzucato, the architecture critic Rowan Moore and Joshua Freeman, who has written a history of giant factories. They were discussing work and labour, including a study of the labour market.
Jane spoke about the post-industrial setting of her collection Assembly Lines, and of the effect that deindustrialisation has on communities. She read her poem ‘Midlands kids,’ from the collection. Presenter Amol Rajan also mentioned her poem ‘On the New Bypass’.
Listen via Start the Week's webpages here. Jane’s interview is at 9.06, but she contributes to the discussion at other points in the programme.
Click here to read.
REVIEW COVERAGE
‘Jane Commane’s first collection Assembly Lines … enjoys the “commonplace miracles” of the ordinary people who make the wheels go round… The whole book is an elegy for a generation of “Midlands kids” who “grew up in the back seats / of the long-gone marques of British manufacturing’…’ – Andy Croft, Morning Star
Click here to read review in full.
[21 May 2018]
