Podcasts

My mother in her imaginary end of life location

The Burden: poem about end of life choice

October 16, 2020

My mother’s elaborate plan for end of life choice: asking me to take her to a glacier in the Southern Alps. (I didn’t.) A poem.

drawing of a passenger train going through a tunnel

Fortune cookies: tiny poems about your life

July 11, 2020

Today, I’m reading some tiny poems that I call fortune cookies. They are feather light. Maybe one of them is about your own life. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Letting go of stuff

July 3, 2020

Listen to two poems about decluttering and letting go of stuff. They’re about the kind of transformation that needs to happen as old age approaches. It’s not just material things that clutter up your life. There’s a sort of psychic clutter that has also got to go.

Books Parker and Hulme, A Lesbian View by Julie Glamuzina and Alison J Laurie. How To Be Old poems Rachel McAlpine

Poems about murder and personality types—a poetry reading

June 19, 2020

Hello again. I’m Rachel McAlpine bringing you a Friday night poetry reading. Tonight I’ve got a special treat: two poems about murder. Don’t worry, they’re not too scary. The main poem is about the Parker-Hulme murder of 1954.

photo of art deco apartment block near a tree-covered hill

Poetry reading: 3 poems about homes

June 12, 2020

We’ve just emerged from lockdown in New Zealand after stamping out COVID-19, at least for now. So we’ve spent a lot of time inside our homes. These 3 poems are about some of the 25+ homes I’ve occupied over 80 years.