Exploring the Darkness

Transcript of episode

Episode transcripts are provided to make this podcast accessible to a wider audience. Please note that interviews featured in this episode have been edited for concision and clarity.

Arji Manuelpillai begins

There is a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean, now it's changing a little bit, but still written into them is the basic understanding that there is danger out there. There is darkness, you know, and if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled in, or whatever.

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Hannah Lowe
Welcome to The Glimpse. I’m your host, Hannah Lowe.

Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, a podcast host, a performer, and a creative facilitator. His first collection, Improvised Explosive Device, was shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize. He has created poems for organizations including the Baring Foundation, Wedgwood, and was asked to write for the Princess of Wales. Arji Manuelpillai is our guest today on The Glimpse.

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Arji Manuelpillai’s poems are electric, tender, and charged with performance. There is a fearless openness in his work, a willingness to inhabit vulnerability while also questioning the narratives that shape us: of masculinity, race, family, and belonging. Arji draws on the textures of everyday life and transforms them into something vivid and communal, poems that feel as alive on the page as they do in the room. These are poems that invite us in, disarm us, and stay with us, full of heart, sharp insight, and a deep generosity of spirit. I’m so glad to have him here on The Glimpse with us.

Arji, welcome. I hear you’ve been writing for the Princess of Wales… You've got to start with that one, Arji. Like, you met the Princess of Wales and, like, wrote a poem—for her, to her.

Arji
Yeah, it was actually for her, and with her.

Hannah
Was it with her?

Arji
Yeah, it was a little bit with her. I mean, I say that very loosely. And one of the interesting things about working with the Princess of Wales was there's a lot of myth and wonder that surrounds the Princess of Wales. So I did a lot of interviews about it, and they always said, like, “You can't say too much about the time that you spent with the Princess of Wales.” So, I mean, obviously I could tell you, I didn’t spend that much time with her.

Hannah
How long did you spend with the Princess of Wales? Like in minutes?

Arji
About 25 minutes.

Hannah
Yeah. (Arji laughs.) I mean, most people have not had that experience.

Arji
No, exactly. The best thing was that when the Princess of Wales met me, she walked up, and she was like, “Arji!” That was the best thing about it, because she actually knew my name. I was like, “Oh, my God, she knows my name.”

Hannah
It was mad.

Arji
It was mad.

Hannah
Yeah, totally mad. So that's because you were a poet-in-residence at the Arboretum.

Arji
Yeah, the National Memorial Arboretum.

Hannah
I just watched the video of you, the Princess of Wales poem. You well smartened up for that video.

Arji
I bought a suit, that was the first suit I've ever bought new. And, yeah.

Hannah
(Laughs) You were looking good. And a tie.

Arji
I know. And I met a guy. You know, when you meet a salesman, and you're like,“This guy knows stuff.” So I just said to him, like, “Kit me out. I don't care what it costs. Like, I'm going to meet the Princess of Wales. You need to sort it out.” So he just sorted me this outfit out. And then it was a whole thing, but the writing of it as well was, it was a real moment, not really so much… It was a big moment for me, but it was a big moment for my parents, because for the first time, they actually had heard of the person I was writing the poem for. So my mom rang up. She was like, weeping on the phone. She was so proud. It was a big thing in the Sri Lankan community, it was massive.

Hannah
Yeah, I bet she rang you and then she's going through her phone book, phoning all her friends as well to tell them. (She laughs.)

Arji
Yeah, fully, like Hannah. Like, before that, I'll tell you, I was a blip in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora community. After that, I had made the whole community proud.

Hannah
That’s amazing. You’re the main man.

Arji
It's incredible. So long may that last. I don't know how long that’ll last, but…

Hannah
That could last forever, I feel.

Arji
It’s definitely one that goes on the bio, doesn't it? So, that’s positive.

Hannah
Yeah, it’s got to go on the bio. And I was thinking about you and commissions, because you do quite a lot of them, and I was thinking, do you feel like under that pressure that I… well, I know you do, because you actually told me, and I put in a poem. So like, full disclosure. I remember you once saying to me and Arvon that you were poet-in-residence at Wedgwood, and you said, “Like what do I know about Wedgwood?” Yeah, which is like a pottery factory. And at the time, I was doing a commission about Chinese wallpaper, and I was like, “Yeah, like, what do I know about Chinese wallpaper?” (She laughs.) I was really glad of the commission. But do you ever get that kind of like, “Okay, I've done all the research, I've spoken to the right people. I've got the whole thing going on, but now I've got to write a poem.” It's quite hard.

Arji
It is quite hard. But you know what? This time, this time at the Arboretum, I felt a level of calm about it, of certainty or self-confidence.

Hannah
Yeah, I reckon you've got the confidence, and that's exactly the right place to be when you're writing a poem with the Princess of Wales.

Arji
That's what I mean. You know what, I was in, Great Yarmouth, which in winter, is one of the most dilapidated seaside towns of England, and it's got… I don't think it's an insult to Great Yarmouth. There's a big crack problem there. It's a lot of alcoholism. And I was there, and I was doing a five-day project in schools when they rang up. So then I said, “Oh, I've got this five days in schools.” And they said, “We'll just take one day off and say it's by royal appointment.”

Hannah
No!

Arji
Yeah!

Hannah
See you later, Great Yarmouth! (They laugh.)

Arji
So I spent one day, so I basically had 24 hours to knock a few drafts together. And I did the process, you know, like running, stretching, drinking, smoking, like all of these different levels, to make something happen. And sure enough, it did. So maybe it's not being confident in what I do, it’s being confident within the process of doing it. You know, confidence in the process?

I mean, it's also being able to keep an eye on it, you know, like, watch what works, because our processes are always changing. So that's interesting as well.

Hannah
But we need to hear your poem and then talk about its composition, how it came to you. So you're gonna read it for us, “The Crocodile.”

Arji
Yeah, I'll read this poem called “The Crocodile.” It's from a new collection that I'm currently sort of finished–slash–working on.


The Crocodile
By Arji Manuelpillai

Is prehistorically violent, so a daughter going drinking
shouldn’t walk past a particular swamp at a particular time,
the father says that would be as good as asking for it but
there’s a town somewhere in Africa, the daughter replies,
where crocs live with people, in and out of houses,
they feed them so the crocs no longer want to eat them.
The daughter slams the door like she’s holding 9 pints of meat.
And what father wouldn’t be anxious, unable to sit still,
what father wouldn’t drive to the bar to watch.
No one knows crocodiles like crocodiles. All those teeth
through the jawline like a child’s eyes through its fingers,
the leather-bag-backs shining till the ridges look like claws.
The daughter won’t ever find out about the hours he sat there.
On the corner, watching his little girl grow into a woman,
remembering what he is and what she has now become.
And his daughter won’t ever find out about another woman,
on the same road, in and out of another building.
Another beautiful woman who he can’t take his eyes off,
leaning into cars like drivers were taking tiny bites from her breasts.
And in the doorway, another man of the same age, watching.
The door behind him heavy enough to crack a leg open.

"The Crocodile" used with permission of Arji Manuelpillai.


Hannah
Wow, thanks Arji. This poem is like… it just takes you from, like… I mean, I smelt a rat the moment the line “that would be as good as asking for it” arrived. That's, like, in the third line of the poem. But it takes you to, like, very unexpected places, although there's also a kind of sense of inevitability about it.

So tell me then, how did it come to you? Did you think, “Okay, I'm going to take this extended metaphor, the crocodile. I'm going to make the crocodile…” Well, I'm sort of presuming that crocodile is substituting for a certain kind of man. Have I got that right?

Arji
Yeah, I would say that that is true. I mean, I don't even know, a certain kind of man, or every man.

Hannah
Well, I didn't want to say that, but… (Arji laughs) yeah, obviously. (She laughs.)

Arji
I mean, yeah! One thing I love to do is, like, go down rabbit holes. I think poets share this. Like, rabbit holes, of factual stuff, about animals or about natural wonder, and then take those and sort of digest them and write about them, and then see how that speaks to something else. So basically like the building of a big metaphor, and the metaphor is, like, a super intimate thing in many ways, and it's almost at the center of poems, because it's saying, like, “Here's one thing” and “Here's another thing,” and then by the end of the poem, you suddenly realize, “Oh, they're quite similar,” you know? So in this, it's all about finding the connections between the crocodiles and the father. But there is actually a town in Ghana where the crocodiles roam in and out of people's houses.

Hannah
So it's interesting to read it when, if, if the crocodiles are men, because in that town, in, you say, in Africa, but maybe Ghana, it's like where men live with people in and out of houses, and they feed them so the men no longer want to eat them. That's kind of blowing my mind. So I was trying to map that, you know, the two parts of the metaphor, the tenor and the vehicle. I was like, “How much do you want us to, you know, stick to that, or is there a little bit more flexibility?”

Arji
And it feels a bit unfair to Ghanaians, but if we were to take Africa and Ghana out of this poem—like because, partly, I didn't choose to put the word Ghana in there, for this reason, is that, well—it's talking about, to what extent do we feed hungry men? So do we provide porn? Do we legalize prostitution? Do you know, or the acceptance of that? Because if we are feeding them, to what extent will that stop violence against women in real life? Do you know what I mean? Those are the questions it's posing, as opposed to me saying, “This is what I think.”

Hannah
Yeah, and maybe not even just violence against women, but just a kind of crossing of boundaries with women. That's what it felt like to me. The daughter is, like, quite kick-ass, that line there, that the daughter “slams the door like she's holding 9 pints of meat.” She's, like, feisty in this poem, and yet, there's quite a lot of the suggestion that she doesn't really know what's going on in the world.

Arji
Do you think she's feisty? Because I thought the nine pints of meat is alluring to the crocodile. So really, in my mind, the door was… slamming the door like she's holding nine pints of meat. The dad is thinking, like, “You're not going out like that,” that sort of vibe.

Hannah
Well, the daughter kind of embodies that sort of, yeah, like feisty energy of a teenage girl who doesn't care what her dad says. So there's a sort of, yeah, there's a kind of feeling of risk, like she doesn't know what the world is that she's entering. She doesn't know everything about that world.

Arji
Oh, yeah, completely. And also, and “no one knows crocodiles like crocodiles,” the dad knows. I mean, I've got a daughter, but I haven't come to that stage. She's only five. But there is a fear. And I think the fear is what we remember, what it is to be a teenager. It's grim.

Hannah
Yes, it’s the Wild West, isn’t it?

Arji
It’s grim, man.

Hannah
But from the middle onwards, from that line, “no one knows crocodiles like crocodiles,” that's so kind of unexpected. It was unexpected and inevitable, because basically—as you say—the guy is then out watching another woman. And the poem really opens up into a bit of a different world, like it moves away from the father-daughter relationship.

Arji
Yeah, for sure. I think even though the father's observing the daughter, he's also observing the other woman, who's leaning in and out of cars, so possibly some sort of prostitute or escort, and some other man is watching that woman. So the question is, is like, the differences in relationship there. The feeling of ownership, how it is being used in different predicaments, is really interesting to me.

Hannah
Yeah, this strong feeling, well, of voyeurism, obviously, with all the kind of watching, but it's also about like, what, what is the power of the look? Where does it sit on the trajectory between harmless and harmful?

Arji
Yeah, and I think this is so interesting at the moment, because now, with AI and stuff, it really shifts how we look, how we have—our relationship with being voyeurs, like looking at something, because in this poem, they're looking in real life, but now we're looking at things that might not even be the real person.

Hannah
Yeah, absolutely. And also, I did think about… the world is changing, like AI has opened everything up, and now, like anything is possible, and you can basically look at anything, and you can also create the sorts of things that you want to look at, whatever your cup of tea is.

Arji
Where does that leave poetry? I mean, when everything is being edited, so photos are being changed, words are being changed, they go through ChatGPT, and then it comes out the other side, all, loads of students are using it. There's a big responsibility not to cheat.

Hannah
Yeah, absolutely. In my investigations to AI, that AI cannot write…

Arji
Good poems. (He laughs)

Hannah
Yea. It can't yet, it can't yet, because it doesn't have a human sensibility. It can't make the kind of the millions of different connections that a human brain would idiosyncratically make.

Arji
No, that's true.

Hannah
But back to your poem, right? Because, in a way, your poem is sort of touching on ideas of morality and people's moral conduct and our moral consciousness, right? So each person is responsible for their own conduct and their own, you know, the kind of moral composer of each individual.

So the idea of, like, good and bad in this poem is quite tricksy, right? Because the father, ostensibly, is being a good, protective father, you know, on the terms of what a good man is in patriarchy. But he's also participating in voyeurism. He's spectating. It’s just a suggestion. It's all in the white space, I think.

And the ending of the poem, I really wanted to talk to you about that because I didn't quite know what was being said, but I liked it. It's ominous, it's visceral, physical. So you've got the idea, is that the last two lines really, is the introduction of the other man watching, but it's not the man, it's the door behind him that's “heavy enough to crack a leg open.” I just wondered, you know, what your intention is with that ending.

Arji
Yeah, I've always been uncertain, like it's been about 50/50 on that line when I ask people about it. One is like, the cracking of the leg open means something is being forced, and two is the darkness of, the ominousness of the door itself and its ability… those big, heavy doors like you get in escort or brothel houses or whatever, so that sort of weight of it. But yeah, I have often thought what image to hold right at the end. Because actually, probably the most important image is of the man watching, because everyone is watching something, because the theme of voyeurism is probably the most powerful movement in the whole poem.

Hannah
Yeah. I mean, we're not going to do any live editing of your poem on this podcast. (She laughs.)

Arji
No, no no.

Hannah
But I think it's… for me, I'd say it had sexual resonances. I love the ending, because it's well ambiguous. It's definitely ominous. It's sinister.

Arji
Yeah, I hear you.

Hannah
The poem sort of gets more and more sinister as it goes through.

Arji
Yeah.

Hannah
This poem is very new and fresh, and I can't wait to read the collection, but sort of on the kind of idea of the forest and what lurks within it. We'll take a break now, and after the break, we'll come back and be talking about the poem that has inspired you, Arji.


Message from Peter and Cathy Halstead, the founders of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation

We hope you’re enjoying this season of The Glimpse. It’s just one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. We’re the founders, Peter and Cathy Halstead.

Our goal is to make great poetry more accessible to everyone, and we do that in a variety of ways: through partnerships, our film series, this podcast, and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We hope these works will lure you into a parallel universe, the way a Möbius strip brings you into another dimension without leaving the page you’re on. Thank you so much for listening.

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Hannah
Welcome back to The Glimpse. Today, I'm joined by Arji Manuelipillai. And Arji, we're going to talk now about a poem that has inspired you. So if you'd like to introduce the poem, and if you want to say anything about the poem, please, please do before you read it.

Arji
I am a really big fan of the poet Matthew Dickman, so I'm really happy to read this poem, “Goblin.”


Goblin
by Matthew Dickman

In each of the stories
where children

are led out of their beds
at night by a broken

father or angry stepmother
and marched off

to be fed into the mouth
of a dark wood,

the children are supposed
to die. In some stories

they do. In others they
survive but must kill

a witch or an animal
in order to live

which is, to be fair
a different kind

of death but a death all
the same. Imagine

the fog around their small
ankles like a shoreline

in the dark. Imagine
how cold their skin

would be beneath the thin
overcoats

of their nightshirts,
the little heat

the parents are giving
off beginning to dissipate

like dew as the children
take that last step

into the copse of trees
and are swallowed up.

There are so many ways
to eat the young.

Yesterday, Owen was riding
his red Radio-Flyer

tricycle around and around
our red dining room

table. Get me, poppa,
get me, you’re a gob-a-lin,

come get me. And I know
I shouldn’t have
really become a goblin,
that that was not what he was

asking for. He wanted his
poppa and a funny voice.

Instead my body grew
like a shadow and turned green,

craven and heavy.
You can’t run from the gob-a-lin,

the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin,
I sang, and chased him

round the table, you
can’t run from the gob-a-lin,

I’m going to eat
your skin. Then he stopped,

knowing that I was
no longer there and looked

up at my face and not
seeing my face began to cry

and shake. I knelt down
and held him,

and said I’m sorry
it’s just poppa,
was that too scary? We
won’t play that anymore and he

calmed a little and said
I don’t want him

poppa,
tell the gob-a-lin not to

come back. When you ask
parents how they ever raised

their children they will
often say

half the time I had no idea
what I was doing.

But I think we do know
what we are doing. And so does

the forest, and the dark
in the forest,

and the wind in the dark,
and the beasts,

the broken fathers, the angry
stepmothers,

the unconditional bond
become errant.

“Goblin” © 2022 by Matthew Dickman. Published by W. W. Norton in Husbandry (2022).


Hannah
Thanks, Arji, for reading that.

There's a poem of yours in your first collection where a character goes into Foyle's Bookshop, and this shop assistant recommends they read Matthew Dickman. And then the character’s, like, reading the book. He likes it so much he reads it over and over again. So your fandom is evident in your poems. (She laughs.) Tell us about this poem and what you're getting from it.

Arji
There's so many things about Matthew Dickman that gets people back up. He was the Super Bowl poet. He's done all these big scale poems. But his level of craft is incredible. And actually it's that jump in between narrative and wider metaphor that is so exciting, in a similar way to someone like Sharon Olds, but probably with a slightly different, lighter touch.

So I think this poem does that really well. It never really unpacks what is the goblin, or how he actually became the goblin. He actually becomes the goblin. He doesn't say, “I acted like the goblin.” Instead, he says, “Instead my body grew / like a shadow and turned green, // craven and heavy. / You can't run from the gob-a-lin, // the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin, / I sang, and chased him // round the table, you / can't run from the gob-a-lin // I'm going to eat / your skin.” So he's really playing or fulfilling that expectation.

Hannah
He terrifies his own child, you know?

Arji
Yeah.

Hannah
And then kind of admits that he did know what he was doing. That's what's really interesting, because there's an idea… I mean, I think the poem is all about power. It's the power that adults have over children, and the vulnerability of children. But it would be one kind of poem if he said, “Oh. And then I went a bit too far, and Owen cried, and I sat him on my lap, and it was good.” There's this whole other bit.

Arji
So you would probably say the turn is “when you ask…”

Hannah
“When you ask / parents how they ever raised // their children they will / say,” or “they will / often say // half the time I had no idea / what I was doing,” yeah, that bit, that is like, whoa!

Arji
I know. And then, and then, “But I think we do know / what we are doing.”

Hannah
That admission.

Arji
So I guess the admission is saying, “I did know I was the Goblin and I do have the power.” That's what I love about this book, it’s like, super vulnerable.

Hannah
I agree with you. It's a brilliant book. I think it's a brilliant book.

Arji
Yeah. And he'd written other stuff that was pretty heavy, and… you know, his other books, and they're very academic in that way, but this feels kind of personal, and it's also a subject matter that isn't written about a lot. So when he says, and so, “But I think we do know / what we are doing And so does // the forest, and the dark / in the forest.” I mean, it goes beyond the goblin. That's what makes those last eight or whatever so cool.

Hannah
Yeah, definitely. And also, he's calling… I mean, the poem opens with references to, you know, children's fairy tales and all that kind of stuff. And it goes back to them at the end, with the “wind in the dark, / and the beasts.” But then it brings it down to the really, you know, the kind of the domestic, the tertiary, “the broken fathers, the angry / stepmothers.” I mean, they exist. The angry stepmothers, of course, already exist in our culture, but not so much the broken fathers, which I think is him slightly pointing a finger at himself?

Arji
I know, that's what's so sad about it. You know what, also, “errant” is a word I had to, when I first read it, look it up, to sort of, sort of just understand where that word is used, like an errant child, like something that's left. So “the unconditional bond / become errant.” So we should love our children perhaps, unconditionally, perhaps we just can't sometimes, or…

Hannah
Yeah, maybe sometimes our own power gets the better of us. I've definitely, I recognize something.

Arji
Tell me about the power thing, like. I'm trying to follow.

Hannah
Well, just that, when you've got little children, you've got incredible power over them, and they rely on you for everything. You know, it's like classic attachment stuff, you know, if they haven't, if they haven't got your love, then they don't have shelter. They don't have, you know, it's all that, will they be able to survive?

And there's something about that power. It's almost… could be like walking on a cliff edge, you know, because you know you've got it, and how easy it would be to abuse it, yeah, even in a, in a playing… really is what he's describing, that game where he maybe just knows he's going a little bit too far. I think the idea that we all know what we're doing, or we don't know what we're doing, as parents is really interesting here, because I would say, in my own experience of being a mom, I haven't known what I was doing, but I've learned very quickly. You know, I've learned very quickly. Like, if I could scare my own son, I would…after I'd experienced that, I wouldn't, I hope I wouldn't want to do it again. But this is the sense of, like, how power can go wrong here.

Arji
Yeah, and how power can poison us, so perhaps sometimes people can let the power, what you described there, the responsibility, go beyond what is safe and fair for a child. And then we say, “Oh, you know, most of the time I didn't really know what I was doing, or...”

Hannah
Yeah, to absolve ourselves.

Arji
Exactly!To absolve, because we don't want to face up to the reality that we did it.
You're right, though, to point out the stories at the beginning, though, because I hadn't thought… I mean, one thing is the circle that leads us back at the end, yeah, and Dickman's like, pretty like, that's sort of his go-to, is swinging it back at the end.

But you're right, “the broken // father or angry stepmother… marched off // to be fed into the mouth / of a dark wood” is beginning the poem as a myth. And then it's almost to say, it's not a myth, like none of those are myths. The dark forest exists, and whenever we want to, we can pull our most loved into that dark forest.

Hannah
Yeah, it's like he pulls the kind of mythology, the fairy tales, sort of sinister fairy tales, from the forest right into his kitchen in that moment where he's playing with his son. I also like the way in the first section of the poem, when he's like re-narrating, you know, “in others they / survive but must kill // a witch or an animal / in order to live.” And then there's almost like in parentheses, “which is, to be fair, / a different kind // of death but a death all / the same,” he's sort of trying to, I think, say, you know, these fairy tales where someone needs to be slain, and the children are part of that, are actually stories of real trauma. It's never talked about. You know, it's not…

Arji
Yeah, that's true. It's a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean, now it's changing a little bit, but still written into them is the basic understanding that there is danger out there, there is darkness, you know. And if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled in or whatever.

Hannah
Exactly. So it's all really about a kind of, you know, in a very simple way, to kind of stay in your lane. It's a sort of “conform” doctrine, where women particularly are posited as being scary and dangerous, but what's more dangerous, the forest or the broken fathers and the angry stepmothers?

Arji
Yeah, I think that's a big shift, that ending. But you know what, a really strange bit is after where we've just been. So “imagine // the fog around their small / ankles like a shoreline // in the dark,” which is a wild thing. It's “like a shoreline // in the dark.” It's like a major shadow. “Imagine / how cold their skin // would be beneath the thin / overcoats // of their nightshirts.” It's just, so you're right to say it's almost like the poem is stepping into a darker part of the forest, or whatever. “The little heat // the parents are giving / off beginning to dissipate // like dew as the children / take that last step // into the copse of trees / and are swallowed up.”

Hannah
Yeah, he really lingers there in that moment, doesn't he, he really lingers there. And it's a very sort of Gothic, sort of almost horror film image. And then he does such a brilliant swing. “Yesterday, Owen was riding / his red Radio-Flyer // tricycle.”

Arji
Yeah, that is so sweet in it. “There are so many ways / to eat the young,” so blasé about that. (Hannah laughs.) And then “Yesterday, Owen was riding…” Oh my gosh!

Hannah
And he just gets completely carried away with it, you know, ending with that “I'm going to eat / your skin,” yeah? And I think the son at this point is, like, very young. And then that just that line, “knowing that I was / no longer there and looked // up at my face and not / seeing my face began to cry.” So this, sort of, the fear of the child, that the father was completely absent of his own body and his role.

Arji
Oh yeah, “not / seeing my face” is such a deep thing. You know, when you're really angry, you've got road rage, and I'm like, “What the f-ck” I'm shouting? And then I look back at my child, and she's seen me like that, oh my gosh. You’re failing.

Hannah
Yeah, I've definitely had a few moments.

Arji
You know what I mean? You're like, “Ugh!”

Hannah
Yeah, I've definitely had those moments with my son, and it's probably important that children do see their parents safely experiencing a full range of emotions.

Arji
Yeah, it's true.

Hannah
Can't be sure that I've always been that safe, but I can't be skipping around like Mary Poppins all the time. (Arji laughs.) I'm a poet, for God's sake. (Hannah laughs.)

Arji
No, exactly. I mean, maybe that's part of it, in it. And also we know he's extremely successful, and that can be really difficult. I mean, we don't see those parts.

Hannah
I just found the whole book brilliant. I thought it was fascinating, and I've really enjoyed talking to you about it. Arji, we should probably be wrapping up now, but before we finish, I need to ask you, what are you working on now? I mean, I know you're working on your poetry collection. You seem to me like one of the busiest men in poetry. Is that true?

Arji
I am. I mean, I've got a lot of things. They don't always burn at the right time. So I am a theorist of, if you chuck loads of stuff at the wall, something will happen.

So I've got, I’ve actually got a graphic novel on fatherhood, which is like three-quarters of the way. It's got some poems in it.

Hannah
Oh, mad!

Arji
Which is really cool.

Hannah
Ah, that sounds brilliant.

Arji
Yeah, it’s really mad. And then I've got a poetry how-to guide for young people, which is like Horrible Histories, but for poems. That's probably the most sellable thing I've ever created in my life.

Hannah
Sounds fantastic.

Arji
So those two things are in motion. And then I'm doing a baby show. So there's a player here called the Yoto player. So we've made some poems and some songs for babies and their parents. So there's a lot of different things for different age groups.

Hannah
You've got a gob-a-lin song in there?

Arji
Not yet.

Hannah
Gonna eat your skin?

Arji
(They laugh.) Not yet.
Yeah, that's one to think about. Yes, we’ve got the tickle monster. Actually, that's the closest we've got.

Hannah
That sounds much more pleasant. Okay, Arji Manuelipillai, it was great to talk to you today. Thanks for joining me on The Glimpse.

Arji
Thank you so much.

Hannah
Thanks for joining us today. I’m your host, Hannah Lowe.

Arji’s poem “The Crocodile” was used with his permission.

Matthew Dickman’s poem “Goblin” is from Husbandry, published by W.W. Norton & Company, copyright 2022, and was used with his permission.

Coming up next week, Menna Elfyn talks about the politics of writing in Welsh,
why translators deserve more recognition, and the power and humility that comes with embracing another language.

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The Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. I’m your host, Hannah Lowe. Our Senior Producer is Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore is our Technical Director and mixing engineer. Editorial Director Amanda Glassman is our curator and production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the foundation’s Executive Director, and our co-founders are Cathy and Peter Halstead.

Thanks for listening.