Martín Espada: Floaters

(00:00) - Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter Discussion(08:43) - Martín Espada interview(01:14:46) - Southword poem, When Our Mother Dies by Jenny MitchellMartín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest book of poems is called Floaters, winner of the 2021 National Book Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.This week's Southword poem is ‘When Our Mother Dies' by Jenny Mitchell, which won the 2023 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition and appears in issue 44. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.