On today’s episode of The Poems We Made Along the Way Gregory Kearns speaks to Isabelle Baafi about Dungeons and Dragons, how being a poetry critic effects the writing of poetry, and exploring poetic forms.

Isabelle Baafi is a poet and editor based in London. Her debut collection Chaotic Good won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and is shortlisted for the T.S, Eliot Prize. She is the Reviews Editor at Poetry London and is a Ledbury Poetry Critic, an Obsidian Foundation Fellow and board member at Magma.

Thank you to the T.S. Eliot Prize for facilitating this episode as part of a series of interviews with poets shortlisted for the 2025 prize. www.tseliot.com/prize/prize-year/the-t-s-eliot-prize-2025/      

Books and other things

Chaotic Good: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571390953-chaotic-good/

You can also use our affiliate link for Bookshop to find most of the books by most of the guests from the show. They are organised into lists for each series. If you use this link, we get a fraction of the money you spend: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/series-five-the-poems-we-made-along-the-way          

We’d also recommend enquiring with your local bookshops or libraries as well.

An incomplete list of poems/books mentioned in this episode:

American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/143917/american-sonnet-for-my-past-and-future-assassin-598dc83c976f1

A man is dragging a dead dog by Jack Underwood: https://poetryarchive.org/poem/man-dragging-dead-dog/  

January Children by Safia Elhillo: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803295988/the-january-children/

Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair: https://safiyasinclair.com/cannibal

Things I read/watched/etc in the lead up to this interview:

In Conversation with Isabelle Baafi: https://forwardartsfoundation.org/in-conversation-with-isabelle-baafi/

sub(VERSE)ive: In Conversation with Isabelle Baafi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU4Blu8Ke-c&t=1107s

The Usual

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Theme tune: Joe Chesterman-March who can be found here: https://joecm.co.uk     

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