Hi,
I'm sorry I missed this first time around, and thank you Jim for bumping.
I'm not sure if I'm your intended audience, Matthew, as I'm quite new here - but I've enjoyed listening to the first two & am happy to share my thoughts if they are useful.
So, I like the website, which is nicely sparse and professional - and the production qualities are great, too - the sound quality is really, really nice. The graphic is fun and the colour scheme nicely simple and 'now'.
I think the graphic perhaps sets up an expectation that isn't quite delivered, a kind of goth-rock-spliff visual communication - as although I think the content I've listened to is erudite, well-argued, well-presented and interesting, apart from the odd expletive it doesn't really echo the goth-rock-spliff vibe.
The content is interesting and pleasant to listen to - I'm not great with podcasts generally as I tend to be either a very active listener, taking notes etc or asleep under the table, and I don't think I'm meant to do either of those with this podcast - but it works as a kind of interesting and intelligent conversation in the background.
You read extracts from essays and lines from poems beautifully and it's so nice to have the links on the page too. The podcasts I've listened to present only one perspective, but that's because it's your podcast, so it's going to be. But that might be worth considering as you move forwards - there's little scope for critical conversation in here or different opinions. I was listening out for a bit of; 'however, the alternate perspective here might be that...' but I didn't hear any that I recall.
In terms of length, my gut reaction was to hope you'd chop these up into shorter sections - but actually, I like that you don't - it's nice that these ask you to spend time with poetry (although again I'm left wondering a little about the single perspective). What works here is that you do, in effect, chop up the podcast, by offering a loose content map.
What would work for me as a potential development is if you gave timings for each section and a time-stamp within the podcast too - so I could more easily skip over sections and navigate to ideas that I find the most interesting.
Either way, it travelled well to the UK, and I've enjoyed listening this pm.
Sarah-Jane
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