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Maitreyabandhu is an ordained member of the Triratna Buddhist Community, a writer on Buddhist practice and a poet of considerable originality; his first full-length collection, The Crumb Road, was published by Bloodaxe in 2013. He talks to fellow poet Jem Poster about both his poetry and his Buddhist beliefs, and reads a selection of his work.

Maitreyabandhu was born Ian Johnson and initially trained as a nurse before going on to study fine art. He moved into a Buddhist community in 1987 and was ordained in 1987. He has written two books on Buddhism, Thicker than Blood: Friendship on the Buddhist Path  and Life with Full Attention: a Practical Course in Mindfulness, and has won the Keats-Shelley Prize, the Basil Bunting Award, the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, and the Ledbury Festival Poetry Competition.