20 August, 2025. Julian shares his process of finding inspiration for and writing poetry with the podcast. We chat about how he discovered his own poetic instincts by accident (with the help of a guitar), discuss the (false?) dichotomy between the technical and the artistic, and listen to a few of Julian’s poems.
Julian is a poet & ecological storyteller. He seeks to tell compelling stories that would help people live more harmoniously with the rest of the natural world. He is a regular volunteer at Ground-Up Initiative & his work has been featured by Urban Birds Initiative Singapore, Living Soil Asia and Coastal Natives. He really likes trees. Follow Julian’s poetry IG @juli.po.etry
Ben talks about movies on his film podcast at deepcutpod.com, and writes about film at thekinetoscope.com. He lived a past life working in film production. Find him online at benjaminyap.me
The Space
This episode was recorded in a Public Living Room, a crowd-funded community space in 195 Pearl Hills Terrace. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to help us keep recording, please support the Stranger Conversations crowdfund. This supports their mission to build a third place at the intersection of self-exploration and collective good. You can follow them on Instagram @strangerconvos or go to linktr.ee/strangerconvos where you can find links to the crowdfund and find out more about what they do.
Timestamps:
00:00 POEM: Today I Am Doing Nothing
03:04 Relationship to the space
06:53 Julian’s start in poetry
13:57 Nature
18:15 Favourite poets
19:59 Formal humanities education
26:54 The Projector closure sidebar
28:03 Artistic/Technical
45:36 Writing process
51:21 POEM: A Dancer and a Debonair
52:48 Ease
55:16 Iron ricebowl question
57:24 POEM: A Poem is a Silk Song
