To mark 10 years since the publication of the anthology MAP: Poems After William Smith’s Geological Map of 1815, we are delighted to present MAP: The Recording, bringing together audio recordings of many of the poems, read by the poets who wrote them.

These poems celebrate a map, a man and a science. The science is geology. The man is William Smith (1769-1839), civil engineer and ‘Father of English geology’. The map is Smith’s masterpiece: A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland, regarded as the first geological map of a country.

MAP: The Recording includes readings by Stephen Boyce, Alison Brackenbury, Andy Brown, Alan Buckley, Peter Carpenter, John Wedgwood Clarke, Elizabeth Cook, Jonathan Davidson, Maura Dooley, Sally Flint, John Freeman, John Greening, Philip Gross, Alyson Hallett, Ailsa Holland, Helen Mort, Andrew Motion, Peter Robinson, George Ttoouli and Anthony Wilson.

The MAP anthology is for Bryan Lovell (1942-2024). These recordings are dedicated to David M. Orchard (1952-2025), whose poem from the anthology is included.

-Michael McKimm, March 2025