Episodes

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A Dream Vision For Our Times20230709The poet Dajlit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Dream Vision of Our Times - an exploration of the poems of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Daljit also shares a favourite, recently published poetry collection and reads a poem from it.

This month's Poetry Extra Book of the Month is: Five Fifty Five by Maura Dooley.

A Dream Vision of Our Times - Writer Henry Eliot explores Geoffrey Chaucer's surreal Dream Vision poems and their contemporary relevance.

Chaucer, the father of English literature, is best known for his long narrative poem The Canterbury Tales, but his witty and imaginative dream visions are also wild, funny and surprisingly relevant today. Henry Eliot considers three of these medieval poems - The Parliament of Fowls, The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame - and how they changed the course of English poetry.

They all begin with a narrator falling asleep, before quickly slipping into surreal and fantastical dream worlds, where talking birds debate the nature of true love, eagles fly into space and men grieve in forests. There are desert wildernesses, ice mountains, glass temples, wicker houses and emerald palaces.

Chaucer depicts the cacophonous worlds of rumour, debate, gossip and hearsay, invoking uncanny parallels with today's world of social media frenzies, celebrity culture, post-truth and fake news. But he also explores the complex and messy nature of psychology, experience and what it means to be human.

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

A Few Don'ts2021032820210329 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archives and selects A Few Don'ts featuring the poetry of Ezra Pound.

The poet Lavinia Greenlaw reappraises Ezra Pound's manifesto, A Few Don'ts by an Imagiste.

A century on, what can his lively don'ts do for today's poets? His passion to make poetry as modern as, say, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (first performed in the same year, 1913) drives him to pronounce on adjectives, ornament, metronomes and abstraction and in praise of the Image.

With fellow poets Frances Leviston, Andrea Brady and Richard Price, and with the visual artist Cornelia Parker, psychologist Sophie Scott and composer John Woolrich, Lavinia explores the dos and don'ts of good poetry and the ins and outs of writing manifestos about it.

Producer: Frances Byrnes

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2012.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

A Foreigner Everywhere2017012220170123 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits BBC's radio archive with a profile of poet Elizabeth Bishop.

In 'A Foreigner Everywhere', Paul Farley explores the American's extraordinary years in Brazil, and how her rootless, traveller's condition inspired her creativity.

Elizabeth Bishop has been called the poets' poets' poet', and her work, often complex and multi-layered, examines the big themes of home, travel and identity. Though she's regarded as an American poet, for nearly two decades Bishop lived in Brazil, where she wrote much of her best work. Essentially an orphan from the age of five, and a constant observer, a 'foreigner everywhere', she speaks to our modern rootless condition, asking how and where we find a sense of 'home'.

Paul explores how Bishop tackles questions of travel, and how she challenged approaches to other cultures in the early days of mass tourism. Bishop met the love of her life in Brazil, became deeply involved in the Brazilian political tumult of the 1960s, and made the trip of her life up the Amazon River. But her Brazil years also ended in tragedy.

In many ways a poet of our times, Paul explores how her often overlooked Brazil years offer a new way into Bishop's work and its relevance - a constant observer, portraying life in all its nuanced complexity.

Producer: Jo Wheeler

Made for BBC Radio 4 by Brook Lapping Productions and first broadcast in 2012.

Daljit Nagra introduces a profile of poet Elizabeth Bishop.

A House Divided: The Poetry Of The American Civil War2011040320180708/09 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'A House Divided - American Civil War'.

The war inspired poets from Whitman to Dickinson. Southern author Allan Gurganus considers the role of poetry in understanding that conflict.

On the 12th of April 1861 Confederate forces attacked the US Military's Fort Sumter, thus beginning the bloodiest war in American history. It is this conflict, more than the American Revolution or Second World War that has had the most dramatic impact on the nation's character.

In a war of brother against brother; the conflict created a tragic human drama as the country struggled to define itself. America's most distinguished poets were affected by unprecedented levels of carnage. Herman Melville wrote a chronological, impressionistic volume of poetry on the Civil War.

Walt Whitman, a volunteer nurse during the war wrote heart-wrenching poems about wounded soldiers beside piles of amputated limbs. Emily Dickinson was most productive during this time, though she never wrote directly about the war. However, her meditations on death, violence and the bloody landscape provide a deep insight into the nation's character.

Featuring music and poetry from before, during and after the war.

Slaves like George Moses Horton who sold poetry in the hopes of buying his own freedom reflects on the meaning of liberty. Soldiers like Obediah Ethelbert Baker who wrote for his wife back home, talks about the righteousness of the Union cause. Northern abolitionist Quakers regale the noble Northern mission and the 'poet laureate of the Confederacy', Henry Timrod, recalls the birth of a new nation.

Producer: Colin McNulty

A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Allan Gurganus considers the role of poetry in the American Civil War.

A Manual For Dreaming Womxn20231022Poet Dajlit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Manual for Dreaming Womxn - in which poet Rachel Long demonstrates how to turn dreams into poetry.

What's the most compelling dream you've ever had?

Poet Rachel Long, in this workshop-for-radio, leads the listener in a dreamy guide – how to turn our night-time sequences into a poetic form.

With the help of poet and psychoanalyst Nuar Alsadir, poet and playwright Caroline Bird and literary editor Kishani Widyaratna, Rachel explores the links between dreams and poetry, including her own. How might we transform our sleep-time wanderings into something more than just a funny story for the morning?

Dreams can be many things - they are narratives constructed and experienced in image; a portal into our unconscious and, more simply, a way to keep our mind occupied while sleeping. But Rachel argues, we can also harness their metaphoric capabilities to deepen our understanding of poetry, and the process of writing poems. Not only that, but poets really can use their unconscious as a guide for their writing.

Rachel Long is a poet and founder of Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, which is housed at Southbank Centre, in London. Her debut collection, My Darling from the Lions, was nominated for the Forward Prize for best first collection.

Presented by Rachel Long

Produced by Eliza Lomas

Mixed by Olga M Reed

A Boom Shakalaka production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.

Dajlit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects A Manual for Dreaming Womxn in which poet Rachel Long shows how to turn dreams into poetry. From 2020.

A Notebook On Aime Cesaire2013120820160417/18 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'A Notebook on Aime Cesaire

When poet and politician Aimé Césaire died at the age of 94 in 2008, it robbed the Caribbean island of Martinique of its most articulate and powerful voice. He was a prolific writer - of poetry, plays and essays - and served as Mayor of Martinique's capital Fort-de-France for over 50 years, as well as representing Martinique in the French National Assembly for 45 years. Aimé Césaire dedicated his life, in print and in public, to his people and his island.

Featuring Christian Lapousiniere, director of the Césaire Study and Research Centre, filmmaker Euzhan Palcy, anthropologists Richard and Sally Price, and Dominique Taffin, director of the Martinique National Archive.

Includes readings by John Norton.

Producer: Martin Williams

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Daljit Nagra introduces A Notebook on Aime Cesaire, a portrait of Martinique's famous son.

A Plague Of Gratitude2022112020221121 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra selects A Plague of Gratitude featuring the Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar.

The 32 year old poet is described as 'one of the most exciting voices in American contemporary poetry.

Kaveh Akbar is plagued by an overabundance of gratitude.

Akbar's prizewinning debut collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, gave an unflinching account of his recovery from alcohol addiction.

But Kaveh has a new preoccupation. Gratitude.

His collection was a resounding success both in the US and the UK, he's just got married to fellow poet Paige Lewis, he's taken up a teaching post at Perdue University in Indiana - and he's suffering from survivor's guilt. He feels overwhelmed by this 'Plague of Gratitude' as he calls it. Even the salad spinner that sits in his kitchen haunts him - taunting him that he's been grossly overpaid because he can afford a salad spinner that nobody needs.

Recorded on location in Indiana, we follow Kaveh as he grapples with this new question - how can he, as a poet, write about gratitude and joy responsibly when there is so much violence and anger in the world? And how can he leverage his new-found fortune to give opportunities for others to feel gratitude?

We hear selections of Kaveh's previous work in addition to a brand new poem.

Kaveh wants to live his life 'in joyful service' to poetry. Teaching at Purdue and running his interview blog, DiveDapper, is part of his idea of sharing his gratitude. Fostering a thriving community is top of Kaveh's agenda - we join him at a celebratory poetry festival he organises in Indianapolis and eavesdrop on his monthly poetry salon where students and teachers come together to share their work and enjoy each other's company outside the classroom.

Producer: Victoria Ferran

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2020.

Daljit Nagra chooses another gem from the BBC's poetry archive.

A Poet's Song2008010620170514/15 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'A Poet's Song' as Paul Farley and Jo Shapcott swap writing poems for song lyrics.

Are lyrics harder to write than poems? Every few years the subject of poetry and song lyrics rears its head. Has our need for the poetic been fulfilled by the musical? Paul and Jo try their hand at writing lyrics for two very different musicians - British rapper Doc Brown, and the singer/songwriter and pianist Jamie Cullum.

The programme follows the progress of these collaborations - recounting the highs and lows along the way - and reveals what musicians can learn from poets, and what poets can learn from their musical counterparts.

Producer: Ella-Mai Robey

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Poet-in-Residence Daljit Nagra chooses A Poet's Song, with Paul Farley and Jo Shapcott.

A Portrait Of... Imtiaz Dharker20230611Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Portrait Of...Imtiaz Dharker.

Follow artist Fiona Graham-Mackay as she paints a portrait of the poet, artist and documentary film-maker.

Born in Pakistan and raised in Glasgow, Imtiaz was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014. She writes about freedom, cultural intolerance, gender politics, love and loss. Fellow poet Carol Ann Duffy has said, 'If there were to be a World Laureate, then for me the role could only be filled by Imtiaz Dharker.

Fiona Graham-Mackay has painted hundreds of portraits, including Seamus Heaney and Sir Andrew Motion. Drawing is, she says, “the flow of life, the soul of life, ? and “you have to fall a little in love with your subject ?.

It's a revealing, intimate experience, peeling away the layers to capture the essence of the sitter as seen through the artist's eye. And in this, conversations meander in unexpected places.

Features readings of 'The Conversation' and 'Invisible' from Over the Moon; 'This room' from I Speak For the Devil, both published by Bloodaxe Books.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

A Portrait Of\u2026 Lemn Sissay2024021820240219 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses A Portrait Of...Lemn Sissay.

In many ways a portrait painter is like a detective – looking for clues below the surface to capture the sitter's true likeness. In this programme we follow artist Fiona Graham-Mackay and her subject – the poet and playwright Lemn Sissay – through this sometimes emotional process.

'I feel like you've gone into me and looked out from behind my eyes.'

Lemn Sissay MBE was an official poet for the London Olympics and his Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London. Born to Ethiopian parents, he was raised in Lancashire by strongly religious foster parents who, having had biological children of their own, put him into care aged 12. They told him neither they, nor any of their family, would contact him again.

On leaving care at 17, he self-published his first book of poetry while on the dole. Much of his work tells the story of his upbringing and search for his birth parents.

Fiona Graham-Mackay has painted hundreds of portraits, including Seamus Heaney and Sir Andrew Motion. 'It's in the space between sentences that people reveal themselves,' she says.

Recorded in Lemn's home and at the Foundling Museum in London, where Lemn is a fellow, the programme follows the portrait taking shape. It's an intimate experience, peeling away the layers to capture the essence of the sitter as seen through the artist's eye. And in this, conversations meander in unexpected places.

Features a reading of 'Suitcases and Muddy Parks' from Rebel Without Applause by Lemn Sissay, published by Canongate.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects A Portrait Of...Lemn Sissay featuring the poet painted by the artist Fiona Graham-Mackay. From 2016.

A Psalm For The Scaffolder2022071720220718 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Psalm for the Scaffolder with Geoffrey Faber prize-winning poet Kim Moore as she invites us into her life as a a writer. She focuses on her working class background and long held desire to follow her scaffolder-dad to work and become poet in residence among the scaffolders.

She shares her love of music and years spent working as a trumpet teacher, and how her tender, atmospheric poetry grapples with the transformations that affect both body and mind during a violent relationship.

This picture of Kim's life and the poetry it informs takes shape alongside a portrait painted by Claire Eastgate as part of her project, Painting the Poets, giving us a unique opportunity to listen in on the intimacies of the painter-sitter relationship.

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra hunts out interesting programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

A Sea Shanty For Charles Causley2021020720210208 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley.

When we look at the sea, W.H. Auden wrote: 'all that we are not stares back at what we are.

Jane Darke goes in search of the sea's truths as told by the Cornish poet Charles Causley. He was born and lived in the centre of the county and went to sea only during the Second World War as a sailor and yet the marine world shaped and defined his work.

The filmmaker and writer Jane Darke lives in and works from a house just above a beach on the north Cornish coast. Her rooms are filled with salvaged objects from the shore. She has made a film about Charles Causley. For this poetry feature the filmmaker and the poet put out to sea and we find their sea lives and their land lives running together like a tide up a beach.

With performances of poems by Jim Causley and Julie Murphy, by Natalie Merchant and by the poet himself.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

A Vision On Peckham Rye2021120520211206 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Vision on Peckham Rye. Levi Roots returns to South London to find out more about his favourite poet, William Blake and uncover the story of Blake's supposed first vision of angels bespangling the branches of a tree on Peckham Rye at the age of '8 or 10'.

“Sauntering along the boy looks up and sees a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough, like stars. ?

When Levi Roots was 15, a teacher read out William Blake's The Tyger to the class. For Levi, it was a life-changing moment. The singer and entrepreneur had only just learned to read and describes the poem as exploding into his brain the way no words ever had before.

Writers, poets and artists continue to draw inspiration from this idea and we hear from some of them about why Blake, and especially this story, continues to have such powerful resonance.

David Almond, explains how Blake crept into his novel Skellig and why he thinks that childhood imagination is different from that of adults. Chris McCabe has been researching the poetic vibrations of the area across the centuries for a book about the lost poets of Nunhead Cemetery, Cenotaph South, and accompanies Levi on a quest to find Blake's tree. The filmmaker Sarah Turner recreated the angel incident for her film Public House, about the successful community takeover of a local pub.

The programme includes readings by Peter Marinker, Chris McCabe, Levi Roots, Georgia Peskett, Barnaby Steed, David Almond and the students of Harris Girls Academy East Dulwich.

The choral piece, Criers of Peckham Rye, was for the film Public House by Duncan Macleod and performed by Dulwich Folk Choir and Duncan Macleod. The programme features other extracts from the film Public House made and sound designed by Sarah Turner.

Producer: Natalie Steed

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adelia Prado, Voice Of Brazil2021011020210111 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC poetry archives and selects Adelia Prado - Voice of Brazil. An immersive portrait of the Brazilian poet who was discovered aged 40 living in provincial Minas Gerais.

This is a rare encounter with one of Brazil's most extraordinary poets. Adélia Prado has shunned the spotlight since her discovery in 1976 – then a 40-year-old mother of five. Now aged 80, her sensual, devout, sometimes provocative poetry is read and admired around the world.

For this programme, in the company of her long-time translator and fellow poet Ellen Doré Watson, she invites us into her home to talk about her life and work.

Adélia Prado was discovered by Brazil's foremost modern poet, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, who launched her literary career with the announcement that St Francis was dictating verses to a housewife in the backwaters of the interior state of Minas Gerais. She writes about the transcendent in ordinary life, of how the human experience is both mystical and carnal. She has been called one of the major voices of the Americas, who 'would remind you of Emily Dickinson if she didn't keep reminding you of Walt Whitman'.

With Poetic Licence, Denouement, Seduction, Neighbourhood and Day from The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems of Adélia Prado, published by Wesleyan. Copyright 1990 Adélia Prado and Ellen Doré Watson. The Mystical Rose and Spiritual Exercise from Ex-Voto: Poems of Adélia Prado, published by Tupelo Press. Copyright 2013 Adélia Prado and Ellen Doré Watson. Adélia Prado, The Mystical Rose: Selected Poems, translated by Ellen Doré Watson (Bloodaxe Books, 2014). Used with permission.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives.

Adventures In Poetry, Adlestrop2015102520151026 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's and 4 Extra's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In Adventures in Poetry, Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of the 1915 poem 'Adlestrop' about a stop at a Cotswolds railway station.

This poem has long been loved for its evocation of high summer, rural England and the intimation of changes to come.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of this 1915 poem.

Adventures In Poetry, Casabianca2020112220201123 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra explores the BBC's poetry archive and selects Adventures in Poetry - Casabianca by Felicia Hemans - the poem which is best known for its first line: - 'The boy stood on the burning deck....'.

This poem was written about a true episode that happened during the Battle of the Nile in the Napoleonic wars by a poet who in her time was as popular as Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron.

Peggy Reynolds talks to critics, a world-famous yachtsman, a naval historian and trainee officers about its impact.

Producer - Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive

Adventures In Poetry, Daffodils, By William Wordsworth2020040520200406 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Adventures in Poetry – Daffodils by William Wordsworth.

Peggy Reynolds looks at the lasting impact of one of the best-known poems in the language with the help of an academic, a Lake District writer, the poet's most recent biographer, the secretary of the Daffodil Society, a rap artist, a teacher, her pupils and the poet Gillian Clarke. From the series exploring the background, effect and lasting appeal of some of our best-loved and most familiar poems.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best from the BBC's Poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, Dear Mr Lee, By Ua Fanthorpe2019030320190304 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Adventures in Poetry - Dear Mr Lee by UA Fanthorpe.

Peggy Reynolds explores the appeal of UA Fanthorpe's poem Dear Mr Lee, written in the voice of a school pupil who has been studying Laurie Lee's classic memoir Cider With Rosie.

In the poem, Fanthorpe has captured the enthusiasm and despair of adolescence, as the pupil confesses to 'Laurie' that she loves everything about his book, except the essays she's had to write about it. Part of the poem's success lies in the fact the Fanthorpe herself taught English for many years, and demonstrates an unusual empathy with a student struggling with the demands of the exam system and a rather tenuous grasp of literary criticism.

Peggy Reynolds talks to Lee's biographer Valerie Grove, to UA Fanthorpe's partner Rosie Bailey, to poets Michael Rosen and Wendy Cope, to several of Fanthorpe's notable ex-students including MP Fiona MacTaggart, and to some current students of GCSE English and their inspiring teacher, who all bring their own enthusiasms to the poem.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects Adventures in Poetry - Dear Mr Lee by UA Fanthorpe.

Adventures In Poetry, Donal Og2018112520181126 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Adventures in Poetry – Donal Og.

Donal Og, an Irish song, translated by Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, is a ballad that speaks of love and loss.

With poets and dreamers, and an old man who met WB Yeats and Lady Gregory as they gathered Kiltartan stories from the Irish speakers of Galway and Aran.

Presented by Peggy Reynolds.

Producer: Sara Davies.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry - Donal Og.

Adventures In Poetry, Journey Of The Magi2021121220211213 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra selects 'Adventures in Poetry - Journey of the Magi' featuring the work by TS Eliot.

'A cold coming we had of it, / Just the worst time of the year / For a journey, and such a long journey ...'

TS Eliot's poem for Epiphany, 'Journey of the Magi', is one of his most popular poems.

Yet it is deceptively complex and, as Peggy Reynolds discovers, takes us on our own journey to somewhere very far removed from the simple certainties of the Three Wise Men at the manger.

Readings by Alec Guiness and TS Eliot.

Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, Kubla Khan2011011520151108/09 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's and 4Extra's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In Adventures in Poetry, Peggy Reynolds explores Samuel Taylor Coleridge's celebrated poem Kubla Khan.

Written in 1797 in a remote farmhouse in the Quantock Hills, the poem came to Coleridge as a vision in an opium-induced dream, which was famously interrupted by a visitor from the nearby village of Porlock. Peggy is fascinated by the fragmentary nature of the poem and the way in which phrases from it have resonated through literature, and even music, ever since.

Peggy is joined by Coleridge's biographer Richard Holmes; James Watt, an expert on the real Kubla Khan; Tim Clayton an expert in 18th culture; and by Martyn Ware, a sound artist who has been inspired by the poem to create a new, and vividly evocative soundscape based on the poem.

Produced by Jane Greenwood

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Peggy Reynolds explores the appeal of one of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's greatest poems.

Adventures In Poetry, Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love2022021320220214 (BBC7)Dajlit Nagra selects Adventures in Poetry - Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love. Presented by Peggy Reynolds.

Peggy hears from those to whom the exuberant lyrics of Cole Porter's song speak volumes, including agony aunt Bel Mooney and pianist Simon Townley.

Taking part: Margaret Reynolds, Simon Townley, Bel Mooney, Stuart Hyne

Producer - Mark Smalley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, Not Waving But Drowning2010120520160814/15 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with an episode of Adventures in Poetry.

Peggy Reynolds asks what it is about Stevie Smith's poem 'Not Waving but Drowning' which has kept it relevant since 1957. The phrase itself turns up endlessly in newspapers, both red-tops and broadsheets, and is particularly loved by writers on sports pages - not, you might think, the obvious place to look for soul-searching poetry. But underneath the snappy economy of the first line runs a complex and universal emotional truth, examined here by a Samaritan, a sports writer and Stevie Smith's biographer.

Adventures in Poetry is a series focussing on classic poems whose lines or images have entered our national consciousness.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry featuring Stevie Smith and her powerful poem.

Adventures In Poetry, Ode On A Grecian Urn2021022120210222 (BBC7)To mark 200 years since the death of the poet John Keats, Poet Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Adventures In Poetry - Ode On A Grecian Urn.

Peggy Reynolds talks to classical scholars, artists, and scientists about the resonance and meaning of Keats's masterpiece about a Greek vase, beauty and truth.

Producer - Sara Davies.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, Ode To The West Wind2022070320220704 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Adventures in Poetry - Ode to the West Wind as Duncan Wu explores the impact and resonance of Shelley's great poem with contributions from Paul Foot, Claire Tomalin, Howard Brenton, Allen Ginsberg, Alice Arnold, F.R. Leavis, Christine Wilder, Tony Targett.

Produced by Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programme from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, ''shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?''2021080120210802 (BBC7)As part of our Dive Into Summer season, poet Daljit Nagra selects an edition of Adventures in Poetry - 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Adventures In Poetry - 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' Sonnet No 18 by William Shakespeare.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' asks Richard Wilson, as he explores some of the hidden meanings and resonance of Shakespeare's much-loved sonnet.

Reader – Andrew Hilton

Producer – Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, Snow, By Louis Macneice2019121520191216 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Adventures in Poetry: Snow - featuring the poem by Lous MacNeice.

Paul Muldoon, Michael Longley, Tom Paulin, Anthony Thwaite and Jill Balcon, with MacNeice's biographer Jon Stallworthy, join Peggy Reynolds to explore the background, effect and lasting appeal of this poem. The reader is Stephen Rea.

Producer: Frances Byrnes

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Adventures In Poetry, The Farmer's Bride2018081220180813 (BBC7)
/7) (BBC7)
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Adventures in Poetry - The Farmer's Bride by Charlotte Mew.

A poem of unrequited rural longing first published in 1912 which still has powerful echoes today.

Peggy Reynolds explores its background effect and lasting appeal.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces a discussion of the poem of unrequited rural longing.

Adventures In Poetry, The Gate Of The Year2018122320181224 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Adventures in Poetry - The Gate of the Year'.

Peggy Reynolds hears the story behind the poem King George VI quoted in his first Christmas broadcast on 25th December 1939.

Written by the unknown Minnie Louise Haskins - it takes her from an unassuming suburb of Bristol to Sandringham, via the correspondence pages of The Times and the hand of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The poem has also popped up at the opening of two world wars and on countless tea towels, internet sites and books of inspirational verse.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2010.

Peggy Reynolds on how a young woman from Bristol put words into the mouth of a King.

Adventures In Poetry, The Listeners2008112320160821/22 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra introduces the classic poem The Listeners by Walter de la Mare.
Adventures In Poetry, The Owl And The Pussycat2023121720231218 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra chooses Adventures in Poetry - The Owl and the Pussycat read by Tony Robinson, and presented by Peggy Reynolds.

Peggy explores the nonsense world of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat.

With the help of academics, writers, children and other fans including Vivien Noakes, Hugh Haughton, Ken Dodd, Johnny Ball, Sophie Grigson and Ian McMillan.

Daljit also reads from Poetry Extra's book of the month: Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2000.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archives.

Daljit Nagra chooses Adventures in Poetry - The Owl and the Pussycat read by Tony Robinson. With Peggy Reynolds. From 2000.

Daljit Nagra chooses Adventures in Poetry - The Owl and the Pussycat read by Tony Robinson, and presented by Peggy Reynolds.And Daljit reads from Poetry Extra's book of the month: Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri.

Peggy Reynolds explores the nonsense world of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat with the help of academics, writers, children and other fans including Vivien Noakes, Hugh Haughton, Ken Dodd, Johnny Ball, Sophie Grigson and Ian McMillan.

Producer - Sara Davies

Adventures In Poetry, The Oxen2005122520171217/18 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Adventures in Poetry' as Peggy Reynolds explores Thomas Hardy's nostalgic poem, The Oxen.

Despite Hardy's agnosticism, this work describes the traditional Nativity scene, with its enduring message of faith and hope.

It was first published in The Times on Christmas Eve of 1915, when the events of the First World War were at their most terrible.

Producer: Viv Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day in 2005.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Adventures in Poetry: The Oxen, Thomas Hardy's nostalgic poem.

Adventures In Poetry, The Sunne Rising20230604Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archives and chooses Adventures in Poetry - The Sunne Rising - John Donne's sexually charged masterpiece.

Peggy Reynolds enlists writers, poets, schoolboys, Shakespeare, the Ancient Greeks and the caretaker of a very contemporary garden in an exploration of Donne's classic poem.

Guests include John Carey.

Reader: Douglas Hodge

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2000.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

Adventures In Poetry, The Tyger2019090820190909 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Adventures in Poetry: The Tyger exploring the inspiration for William Blake's poem.

Programmes exploring the language and lasting impact of poetry. Duncan Wu presents William Blake's The Tyger. With Kathleen Raine, Peter Ackroyd and Michael Horovitz.

Producer Sara Davies.

First broadcast on BBC Radio in 1998.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry: The Tyger.

Adventures In Poetry, Timothy Winters2006091020170820/21 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Adventures in Poetry' featuring Charles Causley's poem 'Timothy Winters'.

A programme from the series that explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Peggy Reynolds explores the lasting appeal of Charles Causley's poem Timothy Winters.

African Performance, It's All About Me2018011420180115 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and this week chooses 'African Women - It's All About Me' recorded on location in Namibia with poets Ingrid Kinda, Luna Rampaga, Nepeti Nicanor, Deseree Isak and Elizabeth Ikhaxas.

First broadcast on World Service in 1999.

Producer: Jackie Chambers.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects 'African Women - It's All About Me'.

Africa's Digital Poets, Another Kind Of Stage 1-22021052320210524 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Africa's Digital Poets - Another Kind of Stage.

In the first of two programmes, Johannesburg based poet Thabiso Mohare looks at the way digital platforms are serving poets across the continent, from emerging writers to established voices, and those carrying forward ancient oral traditions.

Thabiso Mohare ('Afurakan') is one of the poets and entrepreneurs spearheading developments in spoken word poetry in South Africa, and exploring the possibilities of what the digital space can offer poets in countries where there's a lack of publishing infrastructure, or publishers are pulling back from poetry.

Thabiso meets the digital pioneers who, as part of the broader tech revolution in a mobile-first continent, are offering poets across Africa a new outlet for presenting their work in a digital age.

Thabiso talks to Mak Manaka, one of the poets excited by the opportunities to carve their own path, not only against those who value a published collection as proof of your worth, but also against the European model of success.

And he talks to a mentor from the older generation, Professor Keorapatse Kgositsile, the poet laureate of South Africa, to see what he makes of it all, asking what the role of the poet has always been in African societies and how that translates into the online space, and what he sees the pitfalls as being.

Producer: Megan Jones

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016.

Join poet Daljit Nagra as he selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Africa's Digital Poets, Breaking The Window With A Poem 2-22021053020210531 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Africa's Digital Poets - Breaking the Window with a poem part 2/2.

Johannesburg-based performance poet Thabiso Mohare talks to poets in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya who have embraced the digital space to disseminate their work, and looks at how it has served them in continuing a tradition of the poet expressing resistance and representing the conscience of a people.

The role of the court poet or griot was to point out to the powers-that-be that they were messing up. Some of the most vital work being produced and performed now still reflects that role, as poets carve their own path, tackling issues as they see fit, or as part of protest movements such as Fees Must Fall in South Africa.

Thabiso talks to poets who write to agitate, and assesses how much the digital age is influencing the way emerging poets write and perform their work. The phenomenon of certain poems going viral (by Warsan Shire and Suli Breaks for example), and the Def Poetry Jam shows drew several of South Africa's most prominent young performance poets to their chosen craft.

But with the development of digital across Africa, their focus is shifting: they're not just looking to the West any more. Although US influence is strong in spoken word poetry, digital is allowing emerging poets to look instead to their home-grown talent for inspiration, and to foster Pan-African approaches. As well as enabling African narratives, some digital platforms are also affording more chances for people to use their mother tongue to speak to their own communities, which mainstream print publishers have rarely been interested in, or able to support.

Thabiso Mohare ('Afurakan'), a spoken word poet based in Johannesburg, is one of the poets and entrepreneurs spearheading developments in spoken word poetry in South Africa, and exploring the possibilities of what the digital space can offer poets in countries where publishers are pulling back from poetry. Thabiso talks to the digital pioneers who, as part of the broader tech revolution in a mobile-first continent, are offering poets across Africa a new outlet for presenting their work in a digital age.

Produced by Megan Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Alfred Austin, Edmund Blunden And Charles Causley2021110720211108 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects three poets this week:-

Time For Verse - Poets Laureate: Alfred Austin (1835-1913).

The series about some famous and some forgotten holders of the office, compiled and presented by Sean Street.

Readers Martin Jarvis, Adrian Cairns and David Goodland

Producer - Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Three Score And Ten - Edmund Blunden presented by Ian McMillan.

First World War Poet, Edmund Blunden who battled at Ypres and The Somme, reads his own poem Concert Party from a broadcast in 1957.

Followed by Report on Experience, a powerful lyric about nation and the self being impacted on by war.

Producer - Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on Radio 3 in 2016 - with archive readings from 1957 and 1966.

Time For Verse - Charles Causley, Part 5/5

The last of five programmes in which George MacBeth interviews Charles Causley about his life and poetry.

Poems – “Dick Lander ?; “Bridie Wiles“; “Eden Rock“; “Sibard's Well“.

Reader - Michael Deacon

Producer - Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson2019111020191111 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects:

Tennyson As I Remember Him;

First broadcast on the Light Programme in 1951.

Tennyson reads The Charge of the Light Brigade from 1890.

Time for Verse: Poets Laureate - Tennyson.

Produced by Margaret Bradley.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects programmes from the BBC's Poetry archive.

Alphabet20230326Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Alphabet - a poem by Inger Christensen. Ailbhe Darcy delves into the poem and explores what it means to her.

It was published in 1981, by the Danish poet. Written during the cold war, it's an account of living an ordinary life under the threat of nuclear devastation. The destructive force hanging over the poem is the atomic bomb, but the theme of ecological crisis is resonant today (and something Ailbhe explored in her own poem ‘Alphabet', written in homage to Christensen, and published in her book 'Insistence').

Ailbhe looks at the remarkable form of Christensen's 'alphabet' - a kind of exploding poem which is organised both in alphabetical order and also according to the Fibonacci Series - and how that structure allowed both Christensen and Darcy to write at a time of crisis.

She talks to translator Susanna Nied and the poets Marie Silkeberg, Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Goransson about whether 'alphabet' weaves a spell of protection for all the things the poet loved, or catalogues them before they pass out of existence.

Together they reveal a poem which through spirals and counter-spirals encapsulates both the beauty of the natural world and the potential for its extinction.

Produced by Megan Jones for BBC Cymru Wales

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020.

Daljit Nagra chooses another highlight from the BBC's poetry archive.

And You, Helen2019071420190715 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses And You, Helen featuring writer Helen Thomas and her tempestuous marriage to poet Edward Thomas and her role in keeping his flame alive after his death in World War One.

Presented by poet Deryn Rees-Jones who travels to Liverpool, south London and Steep in Hampshire, in the footsteps of this incredibly spirited, progressive woman, who scandalised Thomas' friends with her candid accounts of her relationship with Edward in her memoirs, As It Was and World Without End. Deryn talks to playwright Nick Dear, poet Alison Brackenbury, critic Edna Longley and members of the Edward Thomas Fellowship about Helen's extraordinary life, her response to the tragedy of Edward's death and her talents as a writer.

Deryn also reads from her own poetic sequence, 'And you, Helen' - a response to Edward Thomas' poem of the same name.

Readings by Elaine Claxton and Wilf Scolding

Produced by Emma Harding

And you, Helen by Edward Thomas

And you, Helen, what should I give you?

So many things I would give you

Had I an infinite great store

Offered me and I stood before

To choose. I would give you youth,

All kinds of loveliness and truth,

A clear eye as good as mine,

Lands, waters, flowers, wine,

As many children as your heart

Might wish for, a far better art

Than mine can be, all you have lost

Upon the travelling waters tossed,

Or given to me. If I could choose

Freely in that great treasure-house

Anything from any shelf,

I would give you back yourself,

And power to discriminate

What you want and want it not too late,

Many fair days free from care

And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,

And myself, too, if I could find

Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Deryn Rees-Jones looks at the passionate life of Helen Thomas, wife of poet Edward Thomas.

Andrew Motion And Lavinia Greenlaw1998070520171105/06 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits Fine Lines, with Andrew Motion and Lavinia Greenlaw.
Andrew Motion And U.a. Fanthorpe2017050720201018/19 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with two choices: ‘Poetry Proms' with Andrew Motion from 2000 and Tribute to UA Fanthorpe on ‘Last Word' from 2009.

At a live event Jo Shapcott introduces poets Andrew Motion and UA Fanthorpe who read selections from their work.

In Last Word, Matthew Bannister and Elizabeth Sandy provide a fitting tribute to UA Fanthorpe following her death in 2009.

Producers: Kate Rowland and Neil George.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Daljit Nagra chooses programmes featuring Andrew Motion and UA Fanthorpe.

Anne Stevenson: The Living Poet And Front Row Interview2018110420181105 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with ‘Anne Stevenson – The Living Poet'.

Anne shares some of her poetry and inspirations for writing.

Plus an interview from BBC Radio 4's ‘Front Row' featuring Anne Stevenson talking to Mark Lawson shortly after winning the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award.

From 1984 and 2007.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Anne Stevenson - The Living Poet.

Another Swansea Poet2024022520240226 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Another Swansea Poet featuring Jack Jones.

Daljit also selects his Poetry Extra Book of the Month: Out of Sri Lanka - an anthology of poems by contemporary poets with a Sri Lankan heritage.

Jack Jones is a spoken word poet and the lead singer of Welsh alternative rock band Trampolene, a band which has attracted the attention of The Libertines, Liam Gallagher, John Cooper Clarke and Caitlin Moran.

Jack's spoken word poetry and lyrics are at the core of Trampolene's sound. The music isn't everything though. Sometimes Jack takes the mic, solo, and recites poetry: risky business in a room full of screaming, moshing fans, you might think.

But Jack's spoken word poetry has become an integral part of Trampolene's gigs. The crowd shouts for his poem ‘Pound Land' in every venue and recites Jack's words along with him.

He writes about everyday life, how to fight adversity, his upbringing, and at gigs around the UK offers his own social commentary on the world, all delivered with a gentle Swansea lilt synonymous with his idol Dylan Thomas.

From his home in the Mumbles, Swansea, Jack tells his life story candidly, with insight from around him. We hear from his fellow band members and from one of Jack's biggest fans in the music industry, Peter Doherty, who recalls their adventures on tour together.

This programme reveals a young man in his 20s with a lot to say and a young man with multiple health problems - dyslexia and huge amounts of time spent out of school. It hasn't let that stop him from making a career out of writing and performing poetry and music.

Producer: Eleri Llian Rees for BBC Cymru Wales

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Another Swansea Poet - featuring Jack Jones, poet, lead singer and fan of Dylan Thomas. From 2019.

Asj Tessimond2010041120170716/17 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Lost Voices: ASJ Tessimond'.

Poet Brian Patten showcases the undeservedly forgotten poet Arthur Seymour John Tessimond - known to his friends as Tessy - who died in 1962.

The details of his life are now almost entirely consigned to oblivion, but his poetry lives on, largely in anthologies or as requests on Poetry Please, and Brian Patten was determined to find out as much as he could about the man who wrote some beautiful poetry about love. And cats. And, oddly, Luton.

For a man who never found the love he dreamed of, he was conspicuously tenacious in looking for it - but, as a Tessimond researcher explains in Lost Voices, he had a fatal tendency to seek love from unsuitable women - chorus girls and nightclub hostesses. Nevertheless, Tessimond is clearly a man who inspired affection - what will Brian make of Tessy?

Poems read by Nigel Anthony.

Producer: Christine Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces 'Lost Voices': ASJ Tessimond, the Birkenhead poet.

Ask Me: The Poetry Of William Stafford2017043020170501 (BBC7)
/12 (BBC7)
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Ask Me - the Poetry of William Stafford'.

William Stafford's achievement is extraordinary. He wrote over 20,000 poems, 4,000 of which have been published, in more than 80 books and 2,000 periodicals. But it's the quality of his work that distinguishes him. Stafford was the poetry consultant to the Library of Congress - the post that became the Poet Laureate of the United States, for years he was Oregon's Laureate and he won the National Book Award.

Stafford was born in Kansas in 1914, growing up during the Depression. A conscientious objector, he spent the Second World War in camps, working in forestry. Too exhausted after work he took to rising early to write, and he continued this practice of daily writing until his death in 1993. For Stafford it was the act of writing that mattered most. Writers who got stuck he advised to, 'Lower your standards - and carry on.

His poems are mostly short and accessible, but acquire great depth. They can be tough, too. He was sensitive to landscape, people, animals, nature and history. So it's not surprising that Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were both admirers.

Poet Katrina Porteous visits Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where for decades Stafford taught, wrote and developed his ideas. His son Kim takes her to the huge William Stafford Archive, as Katrina hears recordings of his readings, meets people who knew him, and students and poets he continues to influence. And she goes out into the wilderness of Oregon to investigate and reflect on the life, outlook and work of this great American poet.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

William Stafford wrote a poem every day. Katrina Porteous explores his life and his work.

Autumn Poems2019101320191014 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Four Seasons: Autumn Poems old and new read by actors and poets to mark the equinox and the new season.

Despite our centrally heated and waterproofed lives, seasonal change still operates on the country's imagination and the national mood. Poets are writing about the weather and the turning year as much as ever.

Poems from Helen Mort, Zaffar Kunial, Choman Hardi, Liz Berry and Robin Robertson join celebrated and loved poems by Edward Thomas, Keats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Bronte, WB Yeats and Seamus Heaney, which are read by Anton Lesser, Sinead Cusack and Noma Dumezweni.

To end the anthology Simon Russell Beale sings Feste's bittersweet song, The Rain it Raineth Everyday, from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Four Seasons: Autumn Poems old and new read by actors and poets to mark the turning year.

Autumn Poems2021102420211025 (BBC7)Four Seasons returns with poems of autumn, old and new, read by actors and poets to mark the turning of the year.

Sylvia Plath, George Macbeth, AE Housman, Robert Burns and Sappho read by Harriet Walter, Anton Lesser, Simon Russell Beale, Liz Lochhead and Noma Dumezweni. Plus work by Jacob Polley, Jen Hadfield and Alice Oswald - Radio 4's poet in residence - with a new poem specially commissioned for the day.

Produced by Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Dajlit Nagra selects a compilation programme of Autumnal poems from the BBC archive.

Balloon With A View20230430Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects 'Balloon with a View'.

We're floating silently in the sky beneath a giant pink balloon.

The passengers peer at allotments in rows, over garden walls, spy a police car speeding through suburban streets, a train curving on rails into a tunnel, a sleepy teenager creeping home down an alley, , a woman in a pink dressing gown drinking a cup of tea as her dogs patrol the garden... and finally a magnificent crossing of the River Avon, bird song reaching up to the basket of the balloon drifting silently above.

Birds fly below, wispy clouds hit the bleary eyed faces of two poets a composer and an air pilot, passing over the city of Bristol in the early morning.

Combining the sounds heard from a balloon, with the words and poems of Miles Chambers, Poet Laureate for Bristol and Rebecca Tantony (both first time balloonists), join us on a journey over the city, hearing sound rising up unimpeded from the waking city.

Also in the basket, multi-award winning composer Dan Jones, who brings on board both his music and his previous experience as the sound designer for a fleet of balloons called Sky Orchestra.

And of course the pilot, Peter Dalby, who spends his life staring down at the world from above.

For the balloonist there is no friction; sound rises curiously unimpeded upwards with zero interference. We bring a rich mix of propane burner gushing, the dawn chorus, a choir of city sounds captured in a balloon, all mixed with the magical music of Dan Jones.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects another programme highlight from the BBC's poetry archive.

Batter My Heart: Growing Up And Growing Old With John Donne2014081020181028/29 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Batter My Heart: Growing Up and Growing Old with John Donne'.

Novelist Ed Docx grew up with John Donne's love poems and found them useful billets doux with his early girlfriends. Now not so young he has been surprised by how as he has grown up so the poetry of Donne has kept him company.

Talking to three scholars - a young reader of Donne, a middle aged one and an elderly one, and armed with a stack of Bob Dylan records (another artist good for all ages) - Ed Docx discovers how Donne batters the heart of us all through life.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Batter My Heart: Growing Up and Growing Old with John Donne.

Beacons And Blue Remembered Hills2016061920160620 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills'.

An examination of the enduring popularity of AE Housman in a journey through the Shropshire of his most famous sequence of poems.

Actor, poet and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka Richard Smith) takes Housman's longest sequence (written when he was in London) to the places that the poet was remembering as he explored some of the themes at the core of his work. At the heart of 'A Shropshire Lad' is a real sense of Englishness, unusual in a collection that concerns itself with personal and political themes in such a raw and vulnerable way - loss, grief, suicide, sexuality, nature and joy. What did the settings of 'A Shropshire Lad' - Shropshire and Worcestershire - mean to Housman?

Elvis visits many of the locations that inspired Housman's verse - London, Bromsgrove, Bredon Hill, Ludlow, The Wrekin and talks to people along the way about these evocative landscapes, asking them to read their favourite poems on the way.

Contributors include Andrew Motion, Martin Newell, Wendy Cope, Colin Dexter, Antique Roadshow's Henry Sandon and the many Housman fans of Worcestershire and Shropshire. Elvis attempts to meet Housman himself, listens to the bells of Bredon, goes in search of the loveliest of cherry trees and even finds poetry in a Brewery.

Producer: Frank Stirling

An Unique production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra introduces Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills - the poetry of AE Housman.

Benjamin Zephaniah-gavin Ewart2008021620180506/07 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive to select two programmes:

To mark his colleague's 60th birthday - Time for Verse with Benjamin Zephaniah - reading his poems and talking to Carol Ann Duffy (the current Poet Laureate). From 1991.

Time for Verse with Gavin Ewart - a poet who fought in the Second World War - in conversation with George MacBeth. From 1998.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Poet Daljit Nagra celebrates Benjamin Zephaniah at 60 with an edition of Time for Verse.

Betjeman's Banana Blush2019041420190415 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Betjeman's Banana Blush - an album made by Sir John Betjeman in 1974.

Jarvis Cocker uncovers the hidden treasure Betjeman's Banana Blush. The 1974 LP featured the then Poet Laureate reading twelve poems while accompanied by music composed by Jim Parker.

Betjeman's Banana Blush was released on the progressive rock label Charisma - the home of Genesis, Lindisfarne and Van Der Graf Generator - and tracks from it were regularly featured on John Peel's Radio 1 programme. A Shropshire Lad was named single of the week by New Musical Express and the paper featured an interview with the poet.

For those reasons, the album reached an audience beyond Sir John's usual readers. Suggs from Madness fell in love with the LP: 'I first heard the album in 1979. We'd be listening to Syd Barrett, The Clash...and then Banana Blush would go on. It seemed equally psychedelic in its own strange way. I fell in love with it straight away.' Suggs chose 'On A Portrait Of A Deaf Man' from the album as one of his Desert Island Discs.

Before working on the album, Jim Parker had been a member of Doggerel Bank, writing music to accompany the poems of William Bealby-Wright. Following Betjeman's Banana Blush, he wrote award-winning scores for TV series and films, including Miss Marple, Moll Flanders, Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

His compositions provide perfect settings for Sir John's poems, which range in subject matter from the charming innocence of Indoor Games Near Newbury to the deeply moving 'A Child Ill'. In the programme, Jim plays piano and explains how the album was made.

Producer: Kevin Howlett

A Howlett Media production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Jarvis Cocker uncovers an album made by Sir John Betjeman in 1974.

Between Stones And Stars2019072120190722 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing selects Between Stones and Stars featuring Canadian Rebecca Elson and her passion for geology and the universe.

Rebecca Elson was a remarkable poet and an astronomer. She died in 1999 aged 39, leaving behind a collection of inspiring poems which cover subjects as diverse as Dark Matter, her husband's boxer shorts and the cancer which was killing her. This celebration of her work and life was presented by David Constantine, with contributions from friends and colleagues, readings by Theresa Gallagher and penny whistle, performed specially by Michael Donaghy.

Producer Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.

Daljit Nagra selects Between Stones and Stars from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears, Deliverance2022050120220502 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Between the Ears: Deliverance.

Poet Lemn Sissay collaborates with sound artists Francesca Panetta and Lucy Greenwell to create a new radio poem around the audio diaries of five women in their final days of pregnancy.

Armed with audio recorders Diptee, Olya, Lynda, Sally and Nikki tape their journey: from shopping trips for disposable knickers and maternity towels, to the moment they wonder whether it's started, whether this is it... to the peak of their labours. Deliverance bravely bares all from pregnancy to birth, and Lemn's dialogue with the women reveals how, through the process, not only is a new child born but a new woman.

Lemn was without his birth family until he was 21. Since then he can count on two hands the number of times he's met his mother. He realizes that the nine months he spent in her womb are the only time they were truly connected. Yet only his mother has the memory of it.

Pregnancy's ordinary, yet mysterious. The inner workings of a pregnant woman's mind and body are veiled, private. Yet five women nearing childbirth from as far afield as Russia, Bangladesh and Manchester reveal what many are too fearful to admit to.

We hear Nikki, a surrogate mother determined not to bond with her baby. Sally weeps quietly in fear at 4am; Olya, just 25, considers which country to bring her child up in. And Lynda worries about losing the bond with her toddler Joe, as she reads to him in bed for the last time before the new baby arrives.

Produced by Francesca Panetta and Lucy Greenwell.

Technical production by Peregrine Andrews.

A Phantom Production for BBC Radio 3.

First broadcast in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects engaging programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears, Drever, Ligo2022082120220822 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Between the Ears - Drever, Ligo - Robert Crawford's poetic meditation on the Scottish physicist Ronald Drever, and his role in the search for Gravitational Waves.

The detection of Gravitational Waves in 2015 was hailed as an astounding breakthrough in the world of physics and a triumph for the LIGO project, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. But the discovery was also a triumph for the men and women who had worked at LIGO during tumultuous times.

Music by Jeremy Thurlow.

Producer: David Stenhouse.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears, Rain2022062620220627 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revists the BBC's poetry archive and chooses chooses Between the Ears - Rain, a poem written for radio and performed by Alice Oswald, inspired by a rainstorm in Romford Essex on June 23 2016. Listen on headphones for binaural sound.

Alice Oswald's radio poem Rain was commissioned by Radio 3 in 2016 as part of their 70th anniversary celebrations. Written and performed by the poet, Rain was inspired by a visit to Romford Essex, which experienced a dramatic sudden rainstorm in the early hours of June 23 that year. The poem examines the effect this natural atmospheric occurrence has on an urban environment and its population.

A version of Rain has been created in binaural sound. Listen on headphones for the full effect.

Rain - written and performed by Alice Oswald

Sound design Steve Brooke

Produced by Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and finds the hidden treasures.

Between The Ears, Re:union2023022620230227 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Between the Ears - Re:Union in which Owen Sheers' explores the idea of a nation coming into being.

A collaboration between between radio producer Steven Rajam and Welsh writer Owen Sheers, this radio poem explores the complex, often difficult, links between modern Welsh identity and rugby union, the national sport.

The poem is woven around the sounds and sensations of a real international matchday: the violence of the training pitch, the crowds thronging to the centre of Cardiff, the intensity of the stadium - and much more.

Complementing the young player's story are contributions from social historians, the groundsman at the Millennium Stadium, a player turned acclaimed poet, and 7 year-old superfans Dylan and Alfie - who show us how real Welsh rugby should be played - with a team of their teddies.

Voiced by Scott Arthur.

Contributors:

Peter Stead

Ceri Wyn Jones

Martin Johnes

Producer: Steven Rajam

Written by Owen Sheers

Made by BBC Wales for BBC Radio 3 and first broadcast in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears, The In-between Land2022110620221107 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses The In-Between Land featuring deaf shepherd-poet Josephine Dickinson.

The magical North Pennines landscape inspires Josephine's life and work - and is the fertile backdrop to her real and imagined sound world.

Welcome to her remote hill farm near Alston – near the highest market town in England – where Josephine looks after her sheep and writes her poetry. It's her in-between land, a place between hearing and deafness, art and reality, home and you listening to the programme.

It's a challenging environment, too: in 2018 the ‘Beast from the East' cut the local community off and emergency aid had to be airlifted in by Chinook helicopter, but in the spring the wildflower meadows are alive to the sound of curlews, lambs and bumble bees.

This peat landscape is ever-present in her life and increasingly a source of inspiration for her environmentalism. Born in London, Josephine moved here in 1994 and fell in love with the moors - and with Douglas, an elderly sheep farmer who took her under his wing and married her. Josephine's deafness started at the age of six, but hearing aids enabled her to pursue her love of music, and she taught piano and worked as an arts development worker at the South Bank.

But seven years ago she lost her hearing completely, plunging her into a hallucinatory inner soundscape that tormented and fascinated her in equal measure. She can now hear her lambs and the wind in the cotton grass, thanks to a cochlear implant.

In collaboration with BBC Radio 3 and sonic artist Andrew Deakin - from Full of Noises, based in Barrow - Josephine invited local people to share her Ark of Sound in Alston Parish Church, a powerful sound installation demonstrating that a deaf person doesn't live in a silent world.

A BBC Radio Cumbria production by Andrew Carter.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears, The Milk Way20230723Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Milk Way.

This features poet Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and composer Nina Perry as they create a radiophonic poem exploring the sounds and stories surrounding the flow of milk out of west Wales while the Welsh landscape flows into the sea.

We hear the voice of the path itself “The Milk Walk ? (Y Wac Laeth in Welsh) the route that both the milk and the Cardiganshire dairy workers took to London during the last century.

We meet Mae, a young girl who took the milk train to work in a dairy in London in the 1960's, and Jac Alun, a sailor from a local farming family who moved to the city to sell milk during the Depression.

These three monologues are interwoven with personal testimony from those who currently live and work on the edge of the land:

* Jon Meirion Jones (son of Jac Alun)

* Local farmer, Steffan Rees

* Artist, Lilwen Lewis

* Marine biology student, Tom Malpas

* Nia Haf Jones from the North Wales Wildlife Trust

Stories of migration and milk both past and present are woven into a musical soundscape that paints a picture of humming dairy farms, strange underwater worlds where dolphins echo-locate, coral ticks, and where houses are ‘tippling' into the sea.

The Path is performed by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

Mae the girl by Sara Gregory

Jac Alun the sailor by Matthew Gravelle

Written by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

Composed and Produced by Nina Perry

Painting by Lilwen Lewis

An Open Audio Production for BBC Radio 3, first broadcast in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archives.

Between The Ears, Yuletide In The Land Of Ice And Fire2021122620211227 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Between the Ears - Yuletide in the Land of Ice and Fire. Acclaimed Icelandic poet and author Gerður Kristný journeys into the curious world of Iceland's Christmas myths.

With not one but thirteen Santa Clauses, troll-like figures who sneak down from the mountains to make mischief at Christmas and a 'Yule Cat' who prowls through the snow looking for lazy people to eat, there are myriad fantastical - and sometimes sinister - festive tales indigenous to Iceland.

Creeping down from the mountains one by one over the thirteen nights before Christmas, Iceland's Jólasveinar, or 'Yule Lads' are eccentric characters out to make mischief. From 'Door Slammer' to 'Spoon Licker', 'Sausage Swiper' to 'Meat Hook', the Yule Lads - part of Icelandic folklore stretching back centuries - can be mischievous and menacing, stealing from pantries, playing pranks and scaring children.

These days they are known to leave gifts in children's shoes (or a potato in the case of the badly-behaved) but their parents - evil ogress Grýla and her lazy husband Leppalúði - are still the subject of frightening tales, known to eat naughty children. Even their pet Yule Cat prowls the country's towns and villages looking for lazy people to eat.

With music, sound, poetry and accounts from Icelanders bringing the tales to life, Gerður Kristný guides an atmospheric exploration of Iceland's festive stories, providing insight into unique Icelandic cultural traditions and revealing larger, universal, questions about folklore and why we tell scary stories.

Award-winning poet and author Gerður Kristný won the 2010 Icelandic Literature Prize for her poetry book Blóðhófnir, which is based on an ancient Nordic myth. She has also written award-winning novels and short stories for both children and adults.

Produced by Lorna Skingley

A Smooth Operations production first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Between The Ears: Crex Crex2004012420170709/10 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Between the Ears: Crex, Crex', featuring a poem to a special bird.

Kathleen Jamie, poet and birder, travels to the Isle of Coll to hear male corncrakes as they 'crex crex' their way through the Hebridean summer night. She enlists the help of the birds themselves, the island's RSPB warden Sarah Money and the Coll Drummers.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra chooses Between the Ears with Kathleen Jamie.

Between The Sea And A Hard Place20230820Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Between the Sea and a Hard Place with the 2017 TS Eliot prize winning poet Jacob Polley on Cumbria's West Coast.

The prize winning poet Jacob Polley returns to the West Coast of Cumbria where he was born. Wedged between the Lake District and the sea it's home to a proudly independent border people, who voted for change in the referendum. Jacob wants to understand this place better - to find out why loyalties are shifting - and to get closer to understanding the source of his own writing. Jacob grew up on the Solway, an estuary that's an area of outstanding natural beauty and has been a hazardous shortcut to Scotland since people settled here.

Jacob has felt this marshy landscape of quicksand and shifting channels has always been in flux, and this has been a metaphor he's used in his poetry to capture the sense of vacancy that as a poet he's always felt here. Yet on his journey from the coast to the marsh, Jacob discovers this place is not vacant. It's home to a community who have through history had to fall back on their own resources, and who define themselves as much by what they do, as where they come from.

He visits the Cumbrian artist Conrad Atkinson whose work explores the themes of social injustice and unemployment. Cleator Moor born writer David Gaffney explains why when he was a teenager he felt he lived as far away from Carlisle - the county town of Cumbria - as people in Carlisle feel they are from London.

Yet, this is a place that has been at the centre of things, it was once on the frontier of the Roman Empire. In St. Michael's Church in Burgh-by Sands he discovers recycled Roman stones from the fort of Aballava, on Hadrian's Wall. The chancel was the resting place in 1307 of King Edward I of England, known as 'The Hammer of the Scots'. He died on Burgh Marsh of something called 'The Flux', on the way to crush a rebellion led by Robert the Bruce.

History lives and breathes here, as Jacob meets the Haaf-Net fishermen on the Solway, who catch salmon in the same way as their Viking ancestors did over a thousand years ago. Tuned as they are to the shape of the shifting nature of the Solway, their very adaptability has been the key to their survival.

Presented by Jacob Polley

Produced by Andrew Carter

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archives.

Blake Morrison And Glyn Maxwell1999082920180520/21 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Fine Lines' with Blake Morrison and Glyn Maxwell.

Poets Blake and Glyn discuss their different approaches to shaping a new collection of poems.

Presented by Christopher Cook.

Producer: Melanie Harris

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Blake Morrison and Glyn Maxwell on themes of identity.

Blithe Spirits , 4-5 Low Life And Time For Verse , Poets Laureate: Henry Pye2021030720210308 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Time for Verse: Poets Laureate - Henry Pye and Blithe Spirits - Low Life ep 4.

Time for Verse - Poets Laureate: Henry Pye (1745 - 1813)

From a series about some famous and some forgotten holders of the office.

Compiled and presented by Sean Street.

Readers: Martin Jarvis, Adrian Cairns and David Goodland

Produced by Margaret Bradley.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Blithe Spirits Low Life ep 4

From John Donne's flea to William Blake's fly, the lower forms of life have always fascinated poets. but were they interested in the creatures themselves or for what they represented? Joanna Pinnock gets under the skin of these great authors and discovers why small things have often inspired great verse

Presenter: Joanna Pinnock

Interviewees Jonathan Bate

Prof Ashton Nichol

Erica Fudge

Cameron Milne

Christine Hall

Producer: Brett Westwood

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Blithe Spirits: Beasts And Time For Verse: Poets Laureate, Wordsworth2020032920200330 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Blithe Spirits: Beasts on attitudes to mammals and Time For Verse: Poets Laureate - William Wordsworth.

Radio 4

Joanna Pinnock explores attitudes to mammals in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Through popular verse she reveals the biblical significance of beasts and traces the gradual emergence of animal welfare.

Contributors:

Christine Hall

Erica Fudge

Christine Kenyan-Jones

Ashton Nichol

Cameron Milne

Christine Hall reads To A Young Ass – Coleridge

Christine Hall reads Providence - George Herbert

Christine Hall reads The Hunted Hare – Cavendish

Cameron Milne reads To A Mouse – Burns

Producer - Brett Westwood

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2001.

Poets Laureate – William Wordsworth

From the series about some famous and some forgotten holders of the office, compiled and presented by Sean Street

Readers Martin Jarvis, Adrian Cairns And David Goodland

Producer Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 1987.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Blithe Sprits: Monsters And The Essay: An Ode To John Keats2021103120211101 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Blithe Spirits: Monsters and An Ode to Autumn with Frances Leviston. From 2001 and 2019.

Blithe Sprits - Monsters

Monsters. Alfred Tennyson 's Kraken and John Milton's Leviathan, which he described in Paradise Lost, are well-known poetic monsters which have inspired awe among generations of readers. Joanna Pinnock investigates the importance of monsters in verse and prose and discovers that some are more familiar than our ancestors could have imagined.

Producer - Brett Westwood

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

The Essay: An Ode to John Keats - Frances Leviston on Ode to Autumn [Radio 3, 9/1/2019]

1819 was a stunningly fertile year for John Keats, when he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language and actually introduced words and phrases never heard before - 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.....', 'Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.....' . Five leading contemporary poets each celebrate a single ode.

3. Frances Leviston celebrates perhaps Keats' best-loved and most frequently anthologised poem, Ode to Autumn, exploring both its depiction of the bounty of autumn and its forebodings of death.

Producer - Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Blood, Sweat, Tears And Poetry2019010620190107 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Blood, Sweat, Tears and Poetry with Patience Agabi exploring the relationship between poetry and the workplace.

Patience Agbabi and some of her fellow poets explore the relationship between poetry and the workplace. 2008's National Poetry Day theme was 'Work', and Patience talks to poets and the people who welcomed them into the workplace to find out what the experience meant to both parties.

Produced by Simon Evans.

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2008.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Blood, Sweat, Tears and Poetry presented by Patience Agabi.

Body Of Work20230507Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC archives and ponders the gym - a space he finds most effective for editing his own work.

In Body of Work, Andrew McMillan takes us inside the world of the gym and explores the preoccupations which often shape our relationships to our bodies.

Through interviews, and newly commissioned poetry, Andrew McMillan, a poet who - according to the Sunday Times - “scrutinises the violent idealism of masculinity in monologues that are both tender and steely ?, interrogates the intersections of poetry and gym culture.

Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988; his debut collection Physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. His second collection, Playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018.

He is senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at MMU and lives in Manchester.

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC archives.

Borderliners2022010920220110 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra selects 'Borderliners' featuring a poem by Hannah Lowe which explores the mysteries surrounding the lives of her Chinese Jamaican family.

The term 'borderliner' was once a derogatory term for having mixed heritage. 'Between 'bi-racial' and 'bounty,' Hannah writes, 'I find the label 'borderliner' which the dictionary tells me, means uncertain or debatable.' Using this term and its troubling history as the basis for a new poetic form, the poem reflects on borders and borderlines, both physical and psychological.

Drawing on half-memories and imagined images from her family history, Hannah Lowe re-creates moments from the lives of her Jamaican Chinese father who came to the UK by ship in 1947 and became a professional gambler, her Chinese grandfather who moved to Jamaica as a legacy of indentured labour in the Caribbean, and most elusive of all the mystery surrounding the life of her Jamaican grandmother of whom she has only one photograph.

Producer: Jo Wheeler

Reader: Burt Caesar

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the finest programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Borders Met And Crossed20230521Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and analyses captivating poetry programmes - this week The Echo Chamber - Borders Met and Crossed.

Adventures in strong language - performed and from the page - introduced by a master of poetic ceremonies, Paul Farley.

The River Styx where the dead arrive and the shape-shifting places where people become other animals are among the subjects.

Jo Shapcott, James Lasdun and Simon Armitage come to the edge and shout their poems across.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC archives.

Boston Calling2022052920220530 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Boston Calling featuring Benjamin Zephaniah in search of poetry and conversation with the residents and settlers in Boston, Lincolnshire.

Boston in Lincolnshire is home to many settlers from Eastern Europe and has a long history associated with immigration and migration. It's where the pilgrim fathers who conquered America came from and it has a long cultural history associated with other parts of the world, including the Netherlands.

But the UK media focus in recent years has been on how the people of the Boston of the 21st Century struggle to live side by side. This was also the Brexit hot spot of Britain during the EU referendum.

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah, himself a son of immigrants who grew up in the West Midlands visits Boston to hear, via poetry and interviews with the different people who live there, what Boston means to them.

He meets a variety of people - Romanians, Estonians, Lithuanians and Poles as well as members of the indigenous population - as they put pen to paper to convey their feelings about life in Boston and Britain more generally.

Broken English and foreign languages are mixed with the sound of the traditional Lincolnshire burr as he also hears from people who've lived in Boston all their lives.

Far from finding a town at war, as so often depicted in the media, he discovers a vibrant community who - despite their differences - seem eager to muddle along together and shape a common future.

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra finds the best programmes in the BBC's poetry archive.

Breaking Our Silence20230416Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Breaking Our Silence.

Salma El-Wardany discusses the connection between poetry and revolution with other poets - both political and personal.

In 2011, poet Salma was part of the Arab Spring uprising in Cairo. Thousands of Egyptians came together in Tahrir Square to fight for a new future. And poetry was everywhere - spray painted on walls, shared on social media, and written into songs that became anthems for the protesters.

It was a revolution fuelled by poetry,' says Salma.

Salma celebrates the connection between poetry and revolution. She speaks to four of her favourite female poets - all women of colour from different corners of the world, whose work fuels revolution, both personal and political.

British-Indian poet Nikita Gill sees her own work written onto placards and hears it chanted in the street on marches.

Yrsa Daley-Ward, award-winning writer of Bone and The Terrible, writes about topics on which women have often been silent.

Tjawangwa Dema argues that what, to a Western audience, might seem like a simple love poem, can be truly revolutionary when written by a woman from Botswana.

And Lisa Luxx shares the power of poetry to unite people into a revolutionary community, as she does by organising feminist literary salons in Beirut.

Salma believes that these poetic revolutions, and her own, all have one thing in common - they involve women speaking out, and refusing to be silenced any longer.

Producer: Hannah Marshall

A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Broken Paradise2017062520170626 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Broken Paradise' featuring poetry from Sri Lanka's bitter civil war.

To mark the fourth anniversary of the ending of Sri Lanka's civil war, in May 2009, translator Lakshmi Holmström introduces some of the most powerful Tamil poetry to emerge from the 26 year long conflict, in which an estimated 70,000 people were killed as militant Tamil Tigers fought to establish a separate Tamil state in the north of the island.

These poems bear witness to the atrocities committed by both sides and reflect on some of the war's most significant turning points, from the deadly introduction of female suicide bombers to the final bloody showdown on a beach near Jaffna, where government forces conclusively defeated the Tamil Tigers.

Poets featured include Cheran, probably the most significant living Tamil poet and a former journalist now exiled in Canada, whose poems chart the history of the war and of a landscape once idyllic, now devastated. There is also a poem by S. Sivaramani, a promising young woman poet who committed suicide in 1991. In Oppressed by Nights of War she describes the impact of the violence and fear on children.

Presenter Lakshmi Holmström MBE is a widely acclaimed translator of Tamil fiction and poetry. A collection of her translations of Cheran's poetry is to be published this summer, titled In a Time of Burning.

Readings by Hiran Abeysekara, Vayu Naidu and Vignarajan

Producer: Mukti Jain Campion

A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Daljit Nagra introduces 'Broken Paradise' - poetry from Sri Lanka's bitter civil war.

Can Yr Adar, Song Of The Birds2021010320210104 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Can yr Adar - Song of the Birds featuring singer-songwriter Kizzy Crawford and composer, Gwilym Simcock who describe how they wove words and music out of the landscape and wildlife of Carngafallt nature reserve in Mid Wales.

Kizzy Crawford returns to the RSPB nature reserve at Carngafallt in Mid Wales, where she was inspired to create “Can Yr Adar - Birdsong ? with pianist and composer, Gwilym Simcock, and members of Sinfonia Cymru. Kizzy and Gwilym share how they wove music out of Wales's own 'Celtic rainforest', and they open a window on the hidden processes of creation, collaboration and communication that gave birth to a brand new work of art.

Produced by Chris Taylor.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljt Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke, Blithe Spirits2019102720191028 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Time For Verse: Carol Ann Duffy; Three Score and Ten with the former National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke; and Blithe Spirits looks at verse inspired by birds.

The last of five programmes in which George MacBeth talks with the poet and occasional playwright Carol Ann Duffy.

Reader Lin Sagovsky.

Producer Alec Reid.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989.

Three Score And Ten - Gillian Clarke [Radio 3, 29/11/2016]

Ian McMillan with another episode in the series introducing former National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke reading her poems The Beginning and Flood from a Twenty Minutes Poetry Prom broadcast in 2002.

Producer: Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Blithe Spirits 1/5

Birds. Our impressions of historical attitudes to wildlife are often gained by reading poetry, but how accurate a picture were the poets painting? Even as Keats and Shelley were writing their verse on skylarks and nightingales, thousands of Shelley's 'Blithe Spirits' were being caught each year for the pot. Joanna PINNOCK explores the works of the romantic poets and asks whether they really knew their natural history.

Produced by Brett WESTWOOD.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Three programmes featuring Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke and birds in poetry.

Charles Causley And Robert Frost2021082920210830 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Time for Verse featuring Charles Causley plus a rare interview with Robert Frost by C Day Lewis.

Time For Verse: Charles Causley [3/5 – R4, 20/1/1988]

The third of five programmes in which George MacBeth interviews Charles Causley about his life and poetry.

Poems – “Death Of A Poet ?; “Ten Types Of Hospital Visitor ?.

Reader - Michael Deacon

Producer - Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1988.

Robert Frost visited this country during the summer to receive honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. While here he recorded this conversation on poetry with C. Day Lewis.

First broadcast on the Third Programme in September 1957.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Charles Causley And Robert Southey2021091920210920 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Time for Verse: Charles Causley and Time for Verse: Poets Laureate: Robert Southey.

The fourth of five programmes in which George MacBeth interviews Charles Causley about his life and poetry. Poems: “Uncle Stan ?; “Magpie ?; “Friedrich ?.

Reader – Michael Deacon

Producer – Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Time For Verse: Poets Laureate - Robert Southey

From a series about some famous and some forgotten holders of the office, compiled and presented by Sean Street. Robert Southey (1774-1843). Poems: “After Blenheim ?; “Ode written during the negotiations with Buonaparte, in January 1814 ? (extract); “Funeral song for Princess Charlotte of Wales ? (extracts); “Ode on the death of Queen Charlotte ?.

Readers - Martin Jarvis, Adrian Cairns and David Goodland

Producer - Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Charles Causley, William Whitehead And Iain Crichton Smith2021071820210719 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects two editions of Time for Verse - featuring Charles Causley and William Whitehead. Plus Three Score and Ten with Iain Crichton Smith.

Time For Verse: Charles Causley 2/5

The second of five programmes in which George MacBeth interviews Charles Causley about his life and poetry.

Featuring Poems – “Timothy Winters ?; “School At Four O'Clock ?; “I Saw A Jolly Hunter ?; “Ou Phrontis ?.

Reader - Michael Deacon

Produced by Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Time For Verse: Poets Laureate - William Whitehead (1715-85)

From a series about some famous and some forgotten holders of the office.

Compiled and presented by Sean Street

Readers - Martin Jarvis, Adrian Cairns and David Goodland

Producer - Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Three Score And Ten: Iain Crichton Smith

Ian McMillan introduces archive recordings of Iain Crichton Smith reading three of his poems from Poetry Now, October 1976 [Producer - Stewart Conn] and September 1981 [Producer - Fraser Steel].

Three Score And Ten producer - Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Charles Tomlinson And Elizabeth Jennings2020020220200203 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive choosing two programmes this week. First - Poet Of The Month - Charles Tomlinson whose poetry draws together the strong influence of the American Modernists with the tradition of English meditative nature poets like Wordsworth. He talks to Kate Flint.

First broadcast on Radio 3 in 1992.

Produced by Kate Flint

And Three Score And Ten - Elizabeth Jennings an archive broadcast of Elizabeth Jennings reading Thunder and a Boy and In a Garden

Produced by Sharon Sephton

Three Score and Ten First broadcast on Radio 3 in 2016 with original archive from The Living Poet from 1983.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's Poetry archive.

Charlotte Mew, The Heart Of Hidden Things2023012220230123 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Charlotte Mew - The Heart of Hidden Things.

Julia Copus explores the poetry and life of the only born and bred Bloomsbury poet.

Thomas Hardy wrote that Charlotte Mew was 'Far and away the best living woman poet - who will be remembered when others are forgotten.' Siegfried Sassoon said that she was 'the only poet who can give me a lump in my throat,' while Virginia Woolf called her 'the greatest living poetess'.

Although she lived in Bloomsbury all her life, she was never part of the Bloomsbury set and, when Charlotte Mew died in 1928 aged 59, a small notice in a London paper described her simply as 'Charlotte Mary New, 53' - the name and the age both wrong.

But to those who knew her, Charlotte Mew was a compelling, at times mischievous and groundbreaking poet, whose writing was full of sea-breezes, lamp-lit streets, human voices, and the sudden stark contrasts between sound and silence, between life and death.

Her dramatic monologue The Farmer's Bride caused a sensation in literary circles when it was published in 1912, dramatising the terrifying story of a young woman trapped in a powerless arranged marriage, who is literally locked away.

Julia explores how Charlotte Mew broke the mould of contemporary styles in the early 20th century and created a unique poetic voice.

Reader: Raquel Cassidy

Producer: Jo Wheeler

A Freewheel production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Clarke's Psalter20230528Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's archive and chooses Clarke's Psalter as contemporary poet Edward Clarke examines his process of engaging with the Psalms and scrutinises his belief that poetry is the most powerful means of negotiating and making sense of ourselves and the world today.

Edward Clarke charts his journey writing a collection of modern Psalms. It began with an accidental attempt to write a Psalm in rhyming couplets, but has become a compelling part of his life – getting up in the early hours every morning and juggling writing with commitments to family and teaching.

His poems are not translations but imitations that draw on his daily life and on the 'holy book' which he sees as central to a way of life.

His wife Francesca observes her husband's commitment to the project, and how his poetry provides him with a means to critique the modern world. She concludes that, while she prefers life to poetry, Edward seems to prefer poetry to life.

He writes out of a conviction that the role of poetry is to negotiate the boundaries between the material world and spiritual realms - an attempt to wake himself up as much as his audience.

Throughout the programme we also hear a developing sound track by the Italian Composer Corrado Fantoni who is setting some of Edward Clarke's poems to music.

Producer: Anna Scott-Brown

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Cold War Poet2016050820160509 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Cold War Poet'.

Within a year of his death, Dylan Thomas exploded into occupied West Germany with his popular radio play 'Under Milk Wood'. By the end of the 1980s, his poetry had firmly established his reputation on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in Communist East Germany. Former Berlin correspondent Stephen Evans explores how Dylan Thomas became a cultural export for the British during the Cold War, and how his work helped sustain a generation of East Germans struggling with a totalitarian state trying to control what they read, wrote and thought.

Producer: Gareth Jones

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra on how Dylan Thomas' poetry sustained a generation of East Germans.

Coming Home2014110920181111/12 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Coming Home.

In 2014 Andrew Motion visited the British army camp at Bad Fallingbostel, 40 kilometres north of Hanover in Germany. It's where the 7th Armoured Brigade - the Desert Rats - are based and where they returned after Operation Herrick 19, their final tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Here he talked to a range of soldiers, and back in England he also talked to the mother of a soldier who had been killed on duty in Helmand. He has used these conversations as the basis for a series of new poems reflecting on what it is like for British soldiers to come home after their long and dangerous campaign in Afghanistan. The poems explore the particular nature of the Afghan conflict, while showing certain continuities that flow from wars through the generations.

In this programme, the interviews and poems are set side by side, creating a unique poetry event by Andrew Motion to mark Remembrance Day.

Writer & Presenter: Sir Andrew Motion

Contributors:

• Lance Bombardier Stephen North

• Padre David Anderson

• Sharon Anderson

• Major Wendy Faux

• Lance Corp. Ben Johnson

• Sgt. Vicky Clarke

• Margaret Evison

Producer: Melissa FitzGerald

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Coming Home, a reflection on life as a soldier.

Consorting With Angels2010011720160320/21 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Consorting with Angels' features troubled model and successful poet, Anne Sexton. Despite the glamour life, Sexton was a haunted figure who suffered from mental illness. Like Sylvia Plath, Sexton also wrote verse which reflected her tormented inner life, and about women's issues. And like Plath, she eventually committed suicide.

This personal look at her life and work is told by Anne's daughters and those who knew her. Using home recorded material made available by the family, we also hear actors voicing the transcripts of psychiatric counselling sessions between Anne Sexton and Dr Martin Orne.

Producer: Charlotte Austin

First broadcast on Radio 4 in January 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Consorting with Angels, featuring model and poet, Anne Sexton.

Contemporary American Poets, Charles Simic And Louise Gluck1999072020160807/08 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Postscript: Contemporary American Poets.

Louise Gluck and Serbian born, Charles Simic, both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, read a selection of their work. First heard on BBC Radio 3 in 1999.

Plus Daljit selects an interview with Charles Simic by Ian MacMillan from Radio 3's The Verb in 2009.

Produced for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Sarah Wade.

Daljit Nagra introduces Postscript: Contemporary American Poets featuring Gluck and Simic.

Conversations On A Bench, Derby: Sophie Sparham2022041020220411 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Conversation on a Bench - Derby: Sophie Sparham. Anna Scott-Brown hears more stories from the people who stop to sit beside her on benches around the country.

In this edition, Anna sits on a bench in the centre of Derby. Throughout the programme, a specially commissioned work by the poet Sophie Sparham draws on the voices of those passing by – and sometimes pausing on – the bench at ‘the Spot' in the city.

These hidden stories are glimpsed through snatched moments and the painful and beautiful stories people tell Anna in this busy urban setting. One man talks of regaining his hearing after 18 years of deafness, another – a child of Caribbean immigrants - of the pain he feels for the Windrush generation.

Stories of homelessness feature throughout the programme, including one young man who has turned his life around. And there is a final citation to hope, both in Sophie's poetry and in the contributors who have sat on the bench.

Sophie picks up on some of Derby's well known figures in her poems, and pays a moving tribute to the city she lives in, while expressing some of the tensions inherent in her love for it.

Hidden lives are revealed, and common threads recur as Anna's gentle but insistent, and sometimes extremely direct, questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench.

Presented and Produced by Anna Scott-Brown

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the most interesting programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Conversations On A Bench, Falmouth2023021920230220 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Conversations on a Bench - Falmouth.

Anna Scott-Brown hears stories from people who stop to sit beside her on a bench in Falmouth, Cornwall.

Throughout the programme a specially commissioned work by poet Penelope Shuttle draws on the voices of those passing by – and sometimes pausing on – the bench in Queen Mary Gardens on the seafront.

It is a counter-intuitive approach to the county that gets away from its picture-postcard image, reflecting the poverty and hardship experienced by many in a post-industrial county.

There are stories of love and death, poignantly brought together as Penelope remembers her late husband Peter on whose bench the conversations are taking place.

Hidden lives are revealed and common threads recur as Anna's gentle but insistent, and sometimes extremely direct, questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench.

Produced and presented by Anna Scott-Brown.

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Conversations On A Bench, Leeds2022020620220207 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revists the BBC's poetry archive and selects Conversations on a Bench - Leeds.

Anna Scott-Brown's conversations and chance encounters on a bench in Potternewton Park, Leeds provide the context for Zodwa Nyoni's specially commissioned poem.

Meeting visitors of the Leeds West Indian Carnival, whose home is this very park, along with established and new residents of Leeds' Chapeltown area, Anna uncovers stories of displacement and belonging, of shared space and shared humanity. There emerges a picture of what makes Potternewton distinctive - as well as how it has changed over the years.

The importance of music, heritage and food comes to the fore, alongside racial tensions of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, with experiences of bias that still exists today. The Windrush scandal provides a contrast to the celebration of the West Indian Carnival, and the shocking death of David Oluwale in 1969 following serial police victimisation sits alongside historical accounts of police brutality suffered in this area.

Poet Zodwa Nyoni deftly interweaves her own rhythms into the stories and celebrates the beauty and vitality of this space and its people.

Poet: Zodwa Nyoni

Reporter: Anna Scott-Brown

Producer: Philippa Geering

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Conversations On A Bench: Strabane, Maureen Boyle2021031420210315 (BBC7)Anna Scott-Brown hears more stories from the people who stop to sit beside her on benches around the country.

In this edition, Anna sits on a bench in Strabane on the Irish Border. Throughout the programme, a specially commissioned work by the poet Maureen Boyle draws on the voices of those passing by – and sometimes pausing on – the bench in Abercorn Square.

These hidden stories are glimpsed through snatched moments and the painful and beautiful stories people tell Anna in this busy urban setting - the carer who lost a longed for baby during pregnancy and memories of the Troubles in this hot spot on the border, those who smuggled goods across the closed border and whose relatives moved to Northern Ireland via the hiring fair that used to take place in the square.

Once an employment blackspot, how is the town faring now? And what difference will Brexit make here on the border?

Throughout the programme, Maureen Boyle's poem interweaves a personal elegy for her grandfather who worked at the nearby Linen factory in Sion Mills and her own memories of growing up in the area.

Hidden lives are revealed and common threads recur as Anna's gentle but insistent, and sometimes extremely direct, questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench.

Presented and Produced by Anna Scott-Brown

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Coward, The Poet2008082420160911/12 (BBC7)
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Coward, the Poet.

A regularly overlooked aspect of Noel Coward's remarkable career is the significant amount of poetry he wrote throughout his life. Friends and fans including Anna Massey, Imogen Stubbs, Alastair McGowan discuss a selection of his poems, offering a unique insight into a deeper and somewhat darker aspect of Coward's personal life.

Producer: David Prest.

A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2008.

Friends and fans discuss a selection of Noel Coward's poems.

Crazy For Love, Layla And The Mad Poet2016051520160516 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Crazy for Love - Layla and the Mad Poet'.

The inspiration for Eric Clapton's seminal pop song, 'Layla and Majnun' is said to be the most beautiful poem in the Arab world and beyond.

Pre-empting Romeo and Juliet by centuries, Layla and Majnun is the classic Middle East love story. Sitting at the heart of pre-Islamic Arab culture, its message is universal and it has since crossed borders and transcended language barriers even spreading as far as India and Turkey.

Based on a tale of thwarted love and poetry sent on the wind, Anthony Sattin tells the tale of its creator - Majnun - whose name is the word for 'mad' or 'crazy' in Arabic and tries to find out if he, or the object of his love, were real or imagined, fact or fiction.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Crazy for Love, one of the greatest Middle East love stories.

Dannie Abse, Time For Verse Eps 2-3-52018092320180924 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Time for Verse' (episodes 2-3 of 5) featuring Dannie Abse. - GP, memoir writer and poet.

George MacBeth talks to Dannie about his life and poetry.

Poems read by Anthony Hyde.

Producer: Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Time for Verse featuring Dannie Abse, GP, memoir writer and poet

David Jones And Edmund Blunden2020011920200120 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects The Fatigue featuring war poet David Jones and Three Score and Ten Edmund Blunden.

For some years David Jones was engaged on inter-related pieces of writing concerned with Roman soldiers garrisoned in Judaea at the time of the Passion. In this fragment. The Fatigue, the term is used in the Army sense of a fatigue-party detailed haphazardly for a chance duty - in this case, the Crucifixion. Read by the author.

First broadcast on Network Three in 1965.

First World War Poet, Edmund Blunden who battled at Ypres and The Somme, reads his own poems Concert Party and Report on Experience from a broadcast in 1957.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC poetry archive.

David Walliams On Philip Larkin2016052920160530 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with David Walliams on Philip Larkin.

Actor David Walliams is a great admirer of Philip Larkin's poetry, and to mark the 25th anniversary of the poet's death, he talked to former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who wrote a widely acclaimed biography of Larkin, about why he finds this poetry so appealing.

Walliams chooses a selection of the poems he likes best, some well-known and some far less so, to explore the central themes that recur throughout Larkin's work. It's a fascinating three-way meeting of minds: the actor, the biographer and the poet they both admire.

The poems are read by Philip Larkin, Tom Courtenay and Patrick Romer.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces David Walliams on Philip Larkin.

Derek Jarman And Thom Gunn2019063020190701 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Between the Ears – More than a Desert with Kate Tempest honouring iconic film maker and artist Derek Jarman at Dungeness plus Three Score and Ten featuring English poet Thom Gunn reading from his Forward prize winning collection.

Between the Ears - More than a Desert

More than twenty five years after the death of the iconic filmmaker Derek Jarman, the poet Kate Tempest - only a child when Jarman died - created a new radio poem on the Kent beach where he lived.

Crunching across the shingle of Britain's only desert, poet and playwright Kate Tempest's words are buffeted by the relentless wind of Dungeness - home to two lighthouses, two nuclear power stations, abundant wildlife, and to Prospect Cottage.

Here iconic British filmmaker Derek Jarman spent the last years of his life building his garden, writing diaries, inscribing the words of John Donne on the wall of his cottage. Here the wind whips across the flat, barren shingle, around the fisherman's cottages, out to the open sea where rolling waves meet a vast sky.

Recorded entirely on location in Dungeness, at Jarman's desk and out in the elements, Kate Tempest weaves the words and thoughts of local families and fishermen with rich soundscapes, both natural and man-made. Amidst the quietest sounds of the sanctuary of Prospect Cottage, to the roaring innards of the power station, Tempest crafts vivid new verse, at once intimate and elemental, mapping Dungeness anew.

Features music recorded on the beach by musician Alexander Tucker, and Keith Collins reading from Derek Jarman's 'Modern Nature'. Includes field recordings from the RSPB nature reserve and inside Dungeness B Nuclear Power Station.

Producer, Peter Meanwell

An Open Audio production for BBC Radio 3 in 2014.

Three Score and Ten - Thom Gunn

Ian McMillan introduces Thom Gunn who reads from his anthology The Man with Night Sweats on the untimely death of friends from the horror of Aids.

Producer: Sharon Sephton;

Research by Caitlin Crawford.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016 with archive readings from 1993.

Kate Tempest honours iconic film maker Derek Jarman plus poems from poet Thom Gunn.

Derek Mahon2016102320161024 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive to highlight the work of Derek Mahon.

Regarded as one of our finest poets writing today, Derek Mahon - born in Belfast in 1941 - talks to Peter Brooke about his background and his attitude to his work.

Producer: Kathryn Porter

First broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster in 1984.

Daljit Nagra introduces the work of the contemporary Irish poet Derek Mahon.

Derek Walcott, A Fortunate Traveller2015110120151102 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's and 4 Extra's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'Derek Walcott: A Fortunate Traveller' - Glyn Maxwell meets the Nobel Laureate poet at his beach home on the Caribbean island of St Lucia on his 84th birthday.

Walcott talks about the sea and what it's like to come from a place he feels to be without history. He remembers his late friend Seamus Heaney and enthuses about Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin. They talk of teaching poetry - Glyn was once Derek's student. He reads some of his own poems and, from memory, a sad and beautiful lyric by Walter de la Mare. The surf and the tropical rain make their own calypso music.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Nobel Laureate poet Derek Walcott talks about his life and work.

Dorset Rewritten2019031720190318 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Dorset Rewritten featuring the dialect poetry of William Barnes.

Before Thomas Hardy, there was another Dorset poet called William Barnes. Scrape a finger across Hardy's Dorset and you'll find Barnes' underneath. He was Hardy's friend, forebear and inspiration.

William Barnes was fascinated by language and the dialect used by the people around him. But today he's been all but forgotten. Barnes inspired Hardy, Larkin, and Hopkins yet Britain has never taken him to its heart. Barnes was fascinated by language, obsessed even. He was a polymath. He believed in Pure English and wanted to distill words to their Anglo -Saxon origins; 'photograph' for instance, becomes, 'sun-print'. Curious then that while his poetry is thick with dialect, Barnes spent most of his life teaching English in its conventional form, as a curate and a school master.

A former Poet Laureate, a young teacher from Barnes' Blackmore Vale, and a dialect poet from the Black Country reflect on the curious verse of 'the other' Dorset poet.

Presenter: Daljit Nagra.

Produced by Clare Salisbury.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra goes in search of Dorset poet William Barnes.

Down Off The Pedestals2019070720190708 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Down off the Pedestals featuring Simon Armitage.

The nineteenth century witnessed a flourishing of dialect poets in the new industrial centres. Though they were very popular locally, they were typically sneered at by the metropolitan literary establishment, and their reputations have fared badly in the years since.

Now Simon Armitage sets out to explore the lives and works of two writers whose influence in his Pennine home is felt - Samuel Laycock and Ammon Wrigley. Armitage grew up hearing their poems recited as party pieces, and while he initially wanted to, 'get past them' and forge his own reputation, he's now keen to show why they deserve more serious attention from the reading public beyond their home turf.

Along the way Armitage speaks with musicians who've helped keep the poems alive as songs, and writers such as Glyn Hughes who have long championed the works. Hughes, sadly, has died since the programme was recorded.

Producer: Geoff Bird

A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects a programme featuring the new poet laureate, Simon Armitage.

Dunstanburgh Castle: A Secret As Old As The Stones2017042320170424 (BBC7)
/7) (BBC7)
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses 'Dunstanburgh Castle: A Secret as Old as the Stone'.

Featuring the sounds of Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland, recorded by poet Katrina Porteous, and drawing on local myth and memories of Scottish raids and the ideal of good lordship.

Performed by Trevor Fox and the children of Seahouses First School.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra chooses Katrina Porteus' work about the mysterious castle on the coast.

Dylan Thomas, Witness, The Essay, King Charles Iii2023111220231113 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive to commemorate 70 years since the death of Dylan Thomas - and to celebrate King Charles III - who turns 75 on Tuesday - 14th November.

And for the first time, Daljit reads his own poem We're Lighting Up the Nation - commissioned by the BBC and Buckingham Palace to mark this year's Coronation - originally read by James Nesbitt on BBC 1 on March 7th 2023.

WITNESS HISTORY - The Death of Dylan Thomas

In November 1953 the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York aged just thirty-nine.

Witness presents interviews from the BBC archives.

Presented and produced by Lucy Burns

First broadcast on BBC World Service in November 2013.

THE ESSAY - A Childhood Encounter with Dylan

Andrew Davies reflects on the influence of Dylan Thomas as a child growing up in Wales in the 1950s, with aspirations to be a writer.

Producer: Johannah Smith

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in May 2014

Prince Charles reading Fern Hill

The Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, recorded reading one of his favourite poems - Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas - originally broadcast to mark National Poetry Day in 2013.

At the time, the Prince was the patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival, a BBC festival which celebrated the poet's centenary (in 2013).

Prince Charles said he enjoyed the poem for its 'poignant and moving evocation of a rural west Wales childhood'.

One of the legacies of Thomas's poetry is that it inspires people to appreciate the incomparable landscape of Wales.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday 3 October 2013.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra chooses Witness, The Essay with Andrew Davies and King Charles III reading Fern Hill. From 2013 and 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive to commemorate 70 years since the death of Dylan Thomas and to celebrate King Charles III - who turns 75 on November 14th. And for the first time, Daljit Nagra reads his own poem We're Lighting Up the Nation - commissioned by the BBC and Buckingham Palace to mark this year's Coronation - originally read by James Nesbitt on BBC 1 on March 7th 2023.

The Essay: A Childhood Encounter with Dylan

Producer - Johannah Smith

The Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, recorded reading one of his favourite poems - Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas - originally broadcast to mark National Poetry Day in 2013. At the time, the Prince was the patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival, a BBC festival which celebrated the poet's centenary (in 2013).

Prince Charles said he enjoyed the poem for its 'poignant and moving evocation of a rural west Wales childhood'. One of the legacies of Thomas's poetry is that it inspires people to appreciate the incomparable landscape of Wales.

Edinburgh At The Year's Midnight: A Winter Journey In Poetry2017123120180101 (BBC7)For New Year's Eve, poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Edinburgh at the Year's Midnight'.

One of Scotland's most highly-regarded poets, Stewart Conn takes a winter journey in poetry, sound and music through the capital city with actors Gordon Kennedy and Siobhan Redmond.

A fragment from Under The Ice by Stewart Conn, inspired by Raeburn's portrait which hangs in the National Gallery in Edinburgh:

Was Raeburn's skating parson

a man of God, poised

impeccably on the brink;

or his bland stare

no more than a decorous front?

If I could keep my cool

like that. Gazing straight ahead,

not at my feet. Giving

no sign of knowing

how deep the water, how thin the ice.

Music arranged and played by Aly Macrae.

Producer: Gordon Kennedy

Director: Marilyn Imrie.

Made for BBC Radio 4 by Absolutely productions and first broadcast in 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Stewart Conn's Edinburgh at the Year's Midnight.

Edward Thomas, The Journey To War2022100220221003 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Edward Thomas - The Journey to War. The London Welsh poet was killed during the Battle of Arras, just over 100 years ago. He was 39 years old.

Gwyneth Lewis, Wales' first National Poet, has admired his work greatly over many years. ‘Edward Thomas: The Journey to War' is her tribute to him.

She presents a comprehensive portrait of Thomas, the man and his work.

The programme features interviews from Cardiff University's Special Collections and Archives. Amongst the extensive collection are recordings with Edward Thomas' widow, Helen, and his daughters, Bronwen and Myfanwy.

Thomas was one of the most important poets of the 20th century, influencing poets such as Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin and R.S. Thomas.

Professor Edna Longley, a leading Edward Thomas scholar, tells Gwyneth that Thomas has a unique place in poetry:

“An extraordinary thing is the number of poets today and in the past century who have written poems to or about Edward Thomas. There is no other poet of whom the same is true. So he is ‘a poet's poet' in the best sense of that term. ?

He isn't however, an elitist poet. As Edna Longley says, Thomas, to use Virginia Woolf's phrase, is also read by ‘the common reader'. His most well-known poem, 'Addlestrop' is one of the most requested poems on BBC Radio 4's “Poetry Please ?.

Produced by Dinah Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio Wales in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the finest programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Electric Polyolbion2017011520170116 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Electric Polyolbion.

Part-poetry and part-national topological survey with a rich seam of encounters along the way, Paul Farley reimagines Michael Drayton's sprawling, extraordinary Poly-Olbion, first published in 1612.

The term Poly-Olbion suggests 'many Albions', the plurality of place, and Drayton described his own project as '...a chorographicall [sic] description of tracts, rivers, mountains, forests, and other parts of this renowned isle... with intermixture of the most remarkable stories, antiquities, wonders, rarities, pleasures and commodities of the same.

Drayton's Poly-Olbion is a remarkable poem: 30,000 lines, arranged in 30 sections or 'songs', describing the geography and history of England and Wales county by county. References to place are clear and precise.

The Electric Poly-Olbion follows the same topographies as Drayton's work, and Paul uses its precursor to create a new version out of our contemporary landscape that incorporates and synthesizes historical, scientific, political, literary, pop-cultural and autobiographical dimensions into the imaginative region of the long poem.

As he travels the country and meeting other local writers along the way, Paul writes his own long form verse in and around the places and references of Drayton's original: the same landscapes, two wildly different time frames.

Producer: Simon Hollis

Made for BBC Radio 4 by Brook Lapping Productions. First broadcast in 2010.

Poet and broadcaster Paul Farley's envisages Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion.

Elizabeth Bishop And Marianne Moore2022013020220131 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra selects two editions of The Essay with Neel Mukherjee and Ian Sansom.

The Essay: The Love that Wrote Its Name - The Loves of Elizabeth Bishop

Novelist Neel Mukherjee on the abiding reticence that characterises the work and the life of American poet Elizabeth Bishop, particularly in relation to her sexuality. Mukherjee explores the two great loves of Bishop's life: the Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares and American student Alice Methfessel, who was 32 years her junior. Originally part of Gay Britannia, a season of programming marking the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised homosexual acts that took place in private between two men over the age of 21.

Writer and reader - Neel Mukherjee

Producer - Simon Richardson.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2017

The Essay: More Letters to Writers - Dear Marianne

Continuing his imaginary correspondences with some of the world's great writers, Ian Sansom feels he must finally ask poet Marianne Moore about that cape and tricorn hat.

Producer - Conor Garrett

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Elizabeth Jennings And Fleur Adcock2021013120210201 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Living Poet - Elizabeth Jennings. A series which features interviews with poets - and Three Score and Ten with Fleur Adcock reading some of her work.

“Until about seven years ago I'd thought of myself as a lyric poet in perhaps rather a traditional way. Then, quite suddenly, a new type of subject-matter happened in my poems ?. Elizabeth Jennings introduces a selection of work.

Producer - Fraser Steel

First broadcast on Radio 3 in 1983

Ian McMillan introduces Fleur Adcock who reads two of her poems subtly exploring stereotyping and sexual politics from The Living Poet 1985.

Producer - Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive

Emily Dickinson, Fred D'aguiar, Grace Nichols And John Agard2019092220190923 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Twenty Minutes: Fred D'Aguiar on Emily Dickinson; plus poems from Three Score and Ten featuring Grace Nichols, John Agard and Fred D'Aguiar.

The American poet Emily Dickinson was very reclusive and spent most of her adult life in her room in Amherst, Massachusetts where, after her death, her extraordinary poems were discovered. When Aaron Copland composed the settings of her poems to music he spent many hours there trying to capture something of the spirit of Emily Dickinson. Someone who knows the room well is the poet Fred D'Aguiar, who lived in Amherst for several years. He reflects on Emily Dickinson's room, the place where he himself writes, and the significance of 'The Poet's Room'.

Reader - Christine Kavanagh.

Producer – Julian May.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2010.

Three Score and Ten: Grace Nichols, John Agard and Fred D'Aguiar.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems.

Ian McMillan continues with three poets originally from the Caribbean. Reading their new poems from Poetry Now 1982 Grace Nichols reads 'Night is Her Robe', John Agard 'Pan Recipe' and Fred D'Aguiar extracts from his 'Mama Dot' sequence.

Producer: Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

From 2010.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's Poetry archive.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind2021012420210125 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind featuring poet Alexander Pope. Presented by John Sessions.

Actor and writer John Sessions goes in search of his poetical hero Alexander Pope.

His battered copy of Pope's poems in hand, John talks to 21st century poets and satirists, such as Peter Porter and Ian Hislop, about how Pope continues to inspire and influence their work today.

Many of us have quoted Pope without even knowing it. Phrases such as 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', 'A little learning is a dangerous thing', 'To err is human, to forgive divine.' And though they sound like quotes from Shakespeare or the Bible, they were in fact coined by that great 18th century poet and satirist, Alexander Pope.

Pope's work fell out of fashion soon after his death, dismissed as too formal and cerebral. And he's remained unfashionable ever since. But John Sessions argues that behind the formality of Pope's heroic couplets is a passionate and often angry heart.

Pope's belief in the power of the pen meant that he was never afraid to take on the rich and powerful. His ferocious satires, condemning corruption and cultural mediocrity, made him many enemies. In later years, he wouldn't leave his house without two loaded pistols in his pocket and the company of his dog, Bounce.

Recorded on location in Pope's Grotto in Twickenham and on the site of Pope's preferred coffee house in Covent Garden, John talks to contemporary poets, academics, local historians and fellow Pope aficionados to construct a very personal and affectionate portrait of a famous - but much neglected - poet.

Produced by Emma Harding.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Extinctions2014113020171029/30 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Echo Chamber - Extinctions'.

Paul Farley listens to old and new poetry of extinction 100 years after the death of Martha, the last ever passenger pigeon.

With poems from Fleur Adcock, Sean O'Brien, WS Merwin and David Harsent and the sounds of X-ray audio, the samizdat music of the Soviet Union that used black-market plates of skulls and ribcages to capture the beginnings of rock n' roll.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Paul Farley listens to old and new poetry of extinction.

Ezra Caged2016101620161017 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Ezra Caged.

Jeremy Harding reads and explores the Pisan Cantos, the poems written by the American Modernist poet Ezra Pound during his time in prison in Italy at the end of the Second World War.

He had been arrested towards the end of the war after making pro-Mussolini radio broadcasts, and for a time was held in a wire cage at a detention camp near Pisa. It was in these conditions that he drafted what have gone on to be regarded as the finest section of his long Cantos sequence.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2008.

Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra introduces Ezra Caged, presented by Jeremy Harding.

Fantasy Festival, Gillian Clarke20230702Choosing the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives, poet Daljit Nagra selects Fantasy Festival - Gillian Clarke

Gillian joins presenter Verity Sharp to create and curate the festival of her wildest dreams.

It's a chance for Gillian to set the festival's agenda - choose the guests, pick the acts, dictate the weather, the food and the ambience. A festival where anyone - dead or alive - can be summoned to perform and nothing is unimaginable.

Gillian outlines her dream festival, which she's entitled 'Voice in a Space'. It takes place in a cave in Wales and celebrates great poetry as well as ideas around building and ambiguity.

Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare and Leonard Cohen are on the bill, alongside Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Producer: Rosie Boulton

A Monty Funk production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives.

Fine Lines- Selima Hill And Matthew Sweeney2002021720170611/12 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Fine Lines' with Selima Hill and Matthew Sweeney.

Tales of surreal suitcases, flying wardrobes and a bizarre poker game with a corpse. Poetry and conversation with Christopher Cook and Whitbread poetry prize winner, Selima Hill, and Irish poet Matthew Sweeney.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Daljit Nagra chooses Fine Lines with writers Selima Hill and Matthew Sweeney.

Fine Lines, David Dabydeen And Katrina Porteous1999031420170910/11 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Fine Lines' featuring poets, David Dabydeen and Katrina Porteous,

David and Katrina talk to Christopher Cook about their connection to the sea. David Dabydeen sees it as an historical archive whilst for Katrina Porteous, the sea is a source of life and a living for the fishermen of Northumberland.

Producer: Melanie Harris.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Poet-in-residence Daljit Nagra chooses Fine Lines with David Dabydeen and Katrina Porteous

Fine Lines, Hugo Williams And Amanda Dalton2000071620170806/07 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Fine Lines': featuring Hugo Williams and Amanda Dalton

Christopher Cook's guest poets discuss how their contrasting experiences of school influenced their work.

Producer: Lindsay Leonard.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.

Hugo Williams and Amanda Dalton talk about their contrasting experiences of school.

Fine Lines, Jean Binta Breeze And Michael Donaghy2018020420180205 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting 'Fine Lines' with Jean Binta Breeze and Michael Donaghy on the subject of homeland.

Jamaica and New York's South Bronx as seen through the eyes of poets living in Britain.

Presented by Christopher Cook.

Producer: Lindsay Leonard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Fine Lines with Jean Binta Breeze and Michael Donaghy.

Fine Lines, Moniza Alvi And George Szirtes2019020320190204 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Fine Lines: George Szirtes and Moniza Alvi.

From Budapest to Pakistan - Homelands and Identity. Guest poets Moniza Alvi and George Szirtes in conversation with Christopher Cook.

Produced by Felicity Goodall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Fine Lines with poets George Szirtes and Moniza Alvi.

Fine Lines: Linda France And Roy Fisher1998072620170730/31 (BBC7)Christopher Cook and his guests look at the connections between jazz and poetry.
Fine Lines: Seamus Heaney2001032520170604/05 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Fine Lines' showcasing Seamus Heaney.

Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney talks about his book, Electric Light, which travels widely in time and space visiting sites of the classical world and revisiting the poet's childhood. Presented by Christopher Cook.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Daljit Nagra chooses chooses 'Fine Lines' with Nobel Prize-winning writer Seamus Heaney.

Fine Lines: Tony Harrison And Sean O'brien1998062120170416/17 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Fine Lines' featuring Tony Harrison and Sean O'Brien.

Poets Tony and Sean are in conversation with Christopher Cook in Newcastle.

Fine Lines was a series looking at contemporary poetry,

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra selects Fine Lines, featuring Tony Harrison and Sean O'Brien.

Found At Sea2019102020191021 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Found at Sea - Andrew Greig's powerful sequence of poems about two men's voyage to a remote Orkney island. On the way they tell stories, share haunting revelations and their hopes for the future.

Andrew Greig recounts, in poetic sequence, the tale of his open dinghy voyage from Stromness in Scapa Flow to an overnight stay on Cava island.

In a small boat in open waters, he found a new element to live in and a new metaphor for life. He captures it in a poetry sequence of moving simplicity, 'in the middle of life, halfway over, we pitch on a gurly sea.

Written in six weeks, Found at Sea is a 'very wee epic', as Andrew calls it himself, about sailing, male friendship and a voyage to find a way through the rest of life by recalling the lives they've lived before.

Narrator ............Andrew Greig

Skip ...................Lewis Howden

Crew .................Tam Dean Burn

Musician ............Rachel Newton

Sound Design Lee McPhail

Director Marilyn Imrie

Producer Gordon Kennedy

An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Found at Sea from the BBC's poetry archive.

Four Seasons, A Collection Of Poems For The Summer Solstice20230618Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Four Seasons - A collection of poems for the Summer Solstice.

This is a compilation programme of poems that featured throughout the day on BBC Radio 4 celebrating the longest day and the official start of Summer.

Poets Fiona Benson, Kathy Towers and Raymond Antrobus join readers:

Paapa Essiedu

Michael Sheen

Simon Russell Beale

Noma Dumezweni

Harriet Walter

Siobhan Redmond

Anton Lesser

- with poems on the theme of summer and light.

Producer: Sarah Addezio.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24th June 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

Four Seasons, An Anthology Of Summer Poems2020071220200713 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses: An anthology of summer poems, old and new, for the middle of the year, read by poets and actors.

Noma Dumezweni reads William Blake, Siobhan Redmond reads Adam Zagajewski, Katrina Porteus reads her poem 'Dunstanburgh', Alex Jennings reads Philip Larkin, Anton Lesser reads Rudyard Kipling, Bill Paterson reads Edwin Morgan, Simon Russell Beale reads Edward Thomas; Lavinia Greenlaw reads her poem 'Heliotropical', Daljit Nagra reads a new commissioned seasonal poem, Don Paterson reads his poem 'The Air', Kathleen Jamie reads her poem 'Lochan', Sinead Cusack reads William Morris, Juliet Stevenson reads William Shakespeare, and Seamus Heaney (in an archive recording) reads his poem 'St Kevin and the Blackbird'.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry back catalogue.

Four Seasons, Autumn Equinox2022091820220919 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Four Seasons - Autumn Equinox - a compilation of poetry readings celebrating the coming of autumn.

Back in 2019, September 23rd was the Autumn Equinox. Throughout the day Radio 4 broadcast a series of seasonal poems to mark the turning of the seasons. This compilation brings together the poems and poets whose work was featured throughout the day.

Actors reading poems include : Simon Russell Beale, Anton Lesser, Juliet Stevenson, Paul McGann, Siobhan Redmond, Tanya Moodie

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast across the day on BBC Radio 4 on 23rd September 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Four Seasons, Midwinter2022121820221219 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Four Seasons - Midwinter - poetry, music and meditations on the winter solstice and the shortest days of the year.

Poetry and music to see us through the shortest days of winter. With reflections on midwinter from writers Jay Griffiths (author of Wild: An Elemental Journey and Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time) and Lia Leendertz (the creator of the Almanac guides to the year in the British Isles), and astronomical insights into the winter solstice from cosmochemistry researcher Dr Tim Gregory.

With winter poems by Kathleen Jamie, Liz Lochhead, Ruth Fainlight, Gillian Clarke, Mark Doty, Kerry Hardie and Billy Collins.

Read by Sinead MacInnes and Richard Harrington.

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best seasonal programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Four Seasons, Poems For The Winter Solstice2020120620201207 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Four Seasons: Poems for the Winter Solstice to mark the year's turning point.

A collection of seasonal poems for the winter solstice by Margaret Atwood, D H Lawrence, James Fenton, Bertolt Brecht, WH Auden, Edna St Vincent Millay and Thom Gunn.

Readers are Juliet Stevenson, Anton Lesser, Harriet Walter, Bill Paterson, Siobhan Redmond, Stephen Fry, Noma Dumezweni and Simon Russell Beale.

Joining them are more recent pieces read by the poets Sinead Morrissey, Aonghas MacNeacail, Gerda Stevenson and Jacob Polley as well as former Radio 4 poet-in-residence, Alice Oswald.

And a new poem specially commissioned for the day by Imtiaz Dharker.

Producer: Sarah Addezio.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Four Seasons, Poems For The Winter Solstice2021121920211220 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects 'Poems for the Winter Solstice' - a collection of seasonal poems celebrating the year's turning point.

Poets Caroline Bird and Vanessa Kissule join actors Simon Russell Beale, Juliet Stevenson, Anton Lesser and Siobhan Redmond to share readings of much loved and memorable verse. There is rain, snow, darkness and warmth to mark the shortest day of the year.

Producer: Sarah Adezzio & James Cook

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Four Seasons, Spring20230409Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Four Seasons - Spring - a compilation of poetry broadcast to celebrate the Spring Equinox.

Actors Siobhan Redmond, Adjoa Andoh, Simon Russell Beale, Juliet Stevenson, Anton Lesser, Pippa Haywood and Paul McGann read poetry on the theme of Spring to celebrate the Vernal Equinox.

There are appearances from poets Christine de Luca on Woman's Hour and Caleb Femi with a specially composed Spring poem on Front Row.

Originally broadcast across one day on BBC Radio 4.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects a highlight from the BBC's poetry archive.

Fred's Archive2008033020180325/26 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Fred's Archive' - a unique collection of recorded poets explored by Joan Bakewell.

Back in the crazy days of the 1960s, Fred Hunter began to record some of the great poets of his time, including Tom Raworth, Lee Harwood, Robert Duncan, Edward Dorn, Anselm Hollo, Stuart Montgomery and Basil Bunting.

Producer: Neil Rosser

An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2008.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Fred's Archive - a unique collection of recorded poets.

From Mumbai To Machynlleth2020070520200706 (BBC7)Ghazal, the love song of Indian Classical music, has its roots in 7th-century Arabic poetry.

It carried to the medieval courts of Persia and later to the palaces of the Mughal Emperors of India, was adopted by Sufi mystics along the way, and came to be seen as the highest form of expression of love, for subjects both divine and earthly.

In its latest incarnation, Ghazal has met and been enmeshed with a seemingly alien tradition - the anonymous 'hen benillion' or old verses of rural Wales. While the poets of Ghazal used only to be heard by Indian high society, the Welsh poems, some of which also date back to medieval times, are nuggets of wisdom handed down by ordinary men and women. But both deal in themes of longing and impossible love.

The project 'Ghazalaw', a collaboration between Indian and Welsh musicians, searches for affinities between these centuries-old poetic and musical forms, connects the languages of Urdu and Welsh (which both have their roots in Sanskrit), and attempts to bring communities together. Ghazal still holds to the tenets of Sufism, calling for acceptance, tolerance, and forgiveness - the call of the hour, as the singer and composer Tauseef Akhtar points out: the message is love.

Produced by Megan Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Gone For A Burton2019052620190527 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Gone for a Burton about the town that lives and abides by water.

These are the wild geographies of yeast...' Poet Jean Sprackland visits the breweries and tap-rooms of her home town, Burton-upon-Trent, to write a radio poem about the centuries-old art of brewing, and its rich linguistic legacy. She talks to brewers, beer-drinkers, coopers and landladies about Burton's place in brewing history, and the recent flowering of microbrewers and micropubs in the town.

Produced by Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

A new radio poem from Jean Sprackland on her home town, brewing capital, Burton-upon-Trent

Grace Nichols1997051020180429/30 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Stanza on Stage' featuring the poetry of Grace Nichols.

Grace talks to Simon Armitage about her long poem 'Sunris', which she reads with John Agard as Montezuma and accompanying steel drum music by Aubrey Bryan.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces 'Stanza on Stage', featuring the poetry of Grace Nichols.

Guns, Roses And Poetry Readings2021080820210809 (BBC7)Poet and translator WN Herbert and sound artist and editor of Poetry Wales Zoe Skoulding share their experiences of worldwide poetry festivals and performance.

They tell us how in many Eastern European countries, poetry festivals attract people in their thousands - particularly to the town of Struga in Macedonia which has become one of the most important poetry festivals in the world. Despite the fall of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia, the Kosovo crisis and the political and ethnic clashes in the whole of the region - this particular poetry festival attracts hundreds of international poets all wanting to take part. We discover why.

We also hear why in South America, poets from all over the world gather not only to share their work, but each year decide to 'bury' a philosophical thought that the poets feel the world can do without. But we also hear how, in places like China and Burma, poetry can be seen as subversive and is only shared with great risk of imprisonment or torture. Bill Herbert and Zoe Skoulding share all this and more - as they take us on a personal tour to experience poetry, performance and festivals that celebrate this sometimes marginalised art form.

Presented by Bill Herbert.

Producer: Neil Cargill

A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Gwyneth Lewis, How To Knit A Poem 1-22017021920170220 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive of Gwyneth Lewis in 'How To Knit A Poem'.

Considering the poem to be as complex as a piece of woven material - in the first of two programmes, Gwyneth gets to grips with the craft - as she looks at the links between knitting, poetry and the wider world, as well as writing some new poems.

Producer: Penny Arnold

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Gwyneth Lewis explores the appeal of the craft in How to Knit a Poem.

Gwyneth Lewis, How To Knit A Poem 2-22017022620170227 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive of Gwyneth Lewis in 'How To Knit A Poem'.

With more from her original series, poet Gwyneth asks what is scientific about knitting and hears how artists are using knitting to challenge preconceptions about society.

Producer Penny Arnold

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Gwyneth Lewis connects maths, knitting and poetry.

Hadraawi: The Shakespeare Of Somalia2020071920200720 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Hadraawi: The Shakespeare of Somalia.

BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper meets Somalia's most beloved poet in a rare glimpse into the country's soul.

In Hargeisa, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, everyone knows the nation's most famous living poet – Hadraawi. They call him their Shakespeare. His work over the last 50 years has given voice to Somalis' desire for love, freedom, justice and peace.

The poetry of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame ‘Hadraawi' holds a mirror up to all aspects of life. Hadraawi's poetry tells the story of modern Somalia.

Now in his 70s, this encounter with Hadraawi at his home in Somaliland was recorded just as the first rains fell after the devastating three-year drought. The self-declared republic is rarely seen by the outside world, as the shadow cast by the ongoing violence in Somalia to the south is long. But it's a place Mary Harper has come to know and love during 25 years writing about and reporting on Somalia for the BBC.

It is a nation of poets, where poetry is woven deep into the fabric of everyday life.

Poems featured are from Hadraawi: The Poet and the Man, published by Ponte Invisible/Redsea Online/The Poetry Translation Centre. Clarity translated by WN Herbert and Said Jama Hussein, and The Killing of the She-Camel translated by WN Herbert, Said Jama Hussein and Maxamed Xasan 'Alto'.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the riches of the BBC's poetry sound archive

Helen Dunmore And Dannie Abse2018060320180604 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with two selections:

To mark one year after her death - The Verb featuring Helen Dunmore in conversation with Ian McMillan about her award winning poem 'The Malarkey'.

Producer - Faith Lawrence.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2012

And Time for Verse: with Dannie Abse interviewed by George MacBeth.

Producer: Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Verb featuring Helen Dunmore and Time for Verse: Dannie Abse.

Hilda Doolittle2020061420200615 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive and this week selects: Hilda Doolittle.

It is more than one hundred years since the American poet Hilda Doolittle came to live in London. She lived through explosive changes in twentieth century culture with her dramatic life often overshadowing her work.

Considered for decades as Ezra Pound's Imagiste acolyte, she held her own through psychoanalysis with Freud, travelled extensively, had numerous long term relationships with both men and women, and an intense emotional and artistic connection with DH Lawrence.

Yet it was her poetry that was the core of her being. Though her early Imagist poems are her best known work, it was World War 2 that saw her at the height of her powers. Breaking from the Imagist tradition, in Trilogy, her epic poem, she reports on the war torn city from a pacifist perspective. The life of the bombed city is central and Doolittle redefines the heroic in terms of the suffering of ordinary people. Her trilogy is ranked alongside and Eliot's Four Quartets and Pound's Pisan Cantos as among the greatest civilian poetry of war in the 20th century.

Writer and broadcaster Diana Collecott is our guide to the world of Hilda Doolittle and Sara Kestelman reads a selection of her poetry.

Producer: Merilyn Harris

A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Hiraeth2019112420191125 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses ‘Hiraeth' in which poet Mab Jones explores the concept in the poetry of Wales and further afield.

Hiraeth, a central theme of Welsh language poetry and song, is a feeling of something lost, a long time ago, whether national identity or a once-important language.

It has deep roots - some link it to the loss of self-determination in 1282. It has no equivalent in English, often translating as ‘homesickness', but incorporating an aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a person, even a national history that may never have actually existed.

To feel hiraeth is to experience a deep sense of incompleteness. Longing and absence has infused Welsh songs and poetry for centuries, so perhaps in the national temperament there's a perpetual tension between staying and leaving, a yearning for something better, a grief for something left behind. But there are equivalents in other languages - in Portuguese, 'saudade' is an impossible longing for the unattainable, so there are occurrences of the sentiment across a wide cultural spectrum.

But if the English don't have a word for it, does that mean they don't feel it, or that they don't need it? For some, like Mab's former Professor at Swansea, M Wynn Thomas, ‘hiraeth' can function as a default nostalgia button, and a dangerous tendency to believe things were better in the past. It's an experience characteristic of the powerless, the dispossessed; it's the signature tune of loss, but is this hopeless and persistent longing holding this small nation back?

Mab Jones is a poet and performer both humorous and deeply serious. She stands outside the Welsh language tradition, claims she doesn't feel hiraeth (not for Wales anyway - possibly for Japan). She questions and pokes at the concept, visiting the National Eisteddfod for the first time in an attempt to put her finger on exactly what it is.

Exploring the concept through poetry that expresses it, from the poets Menna Elfyn and Ifor ap Glyn she hears poems and songs that deal with aspects of Welsh history that might explain the continued existence of the word in Welsh - forced removals from much loved homes through industrialisation and military eviction. And she talks to writers who live between two worlds and struggle with a sense of belonging: Pamela Petro, an American writer who fell in love with the landscape of Wales in her twenties, and Eric Charles Ngalle, a Cameroonian poet and refugee, who made a life in Wales while unable to turn his mind to his original home, and the trauma that made him leave his family aged 17.

Produced by Megan Jones.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Poet Mab Jones explores the concept of 'Hiraeth' in the poetry of Wales

'how Do I Love Thee... ?', By Eb Browning1999040420180527/28 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Adventures in Poetry - How do I love thee?' The love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Peggy Reynolds counts the ways in which the nation's favourite love poem, Browning 's Sonnet 43 from the Portuguese, has had a lasting impact.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra features the sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How To Write A Poem 1-22020110820201109 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra searches the BBC's poetry archive and chooses How to Write a Poem ep 1/2 featuring poet Glyn Maxwell.

Glynn finds himself in a strange village. He has been invited there to teach a poetry masterclass at a literature festival with some impressive names on the line-up. Could that really be John Keats reading in the back room of the pub? Is that John Clare wandering the lanes? Is Emily Dickinson really doing a Q&A in the village hall? And isn't that Lord Byron propping up the bar?

With Glyn are three new poets - Holly Corfield Carr, Victoria Adukwei Bulley and Dominic Fisher - who share their own poems-in-progress. The students put their questions on writing directly to the greats and Glyn shares his own advice on writing better poetry – from facing the blank page and developing ideas, to the intricacies of rhyme, metre, form and line break.

All words spoken by Keats, Clare, Dickinson and Byron are taken verbatim from their poems, letters and diaries.

Written and presented by Glyn Maxwell

Barmaid - Sally Phillips

John Keats - Tom Stuart

John Clare - Tom Meeten

Student Poets - Holly Corfield Carr, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Dominic Fisher

Producers: Mair Bosworth & Chris Ledgard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

How To Write A Poem 2-22020111520201116 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra explores the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects part 2 of How to Write a Poem featuring the poet Glyn Maxwell.

Glyn Maxwell is in a strange village. He's been invited there to teach a poetry masterclass at a literature festival with some impressive names on the line-up. Could that really be John Keats reading in the back room of the pub? Is that John Clare wandering the lanes? Is Emily Dickinson really doing a Q&A in the village hall? And isn't that Lord Byron propping up the bar?

With Glyn are three new poets - Holly Corfield Carr, Victoria Adukwei Bulley and Dominic Fisher - who share their poems-in-progress. The students put their questions on writing directly to the greats and Glyn shares his own advice on writing better poetry – from facing the blank page and developing ideas, to the intricacies of rhyme, metre, form and line break.

All words spoken by Keats, Clare, Dickinson and Byron are taken verbatim from their poems, letters and diaries.

Barmaid - Sally Phillips

Emily Dickinson - Amy Rose

Lord Byron - Adam Harley

Student Poets - Holly Corfield Carr, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Dominic Fisher

Written and presented by Glyn Maxwell.

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's Poetry archive.

I'm A Lumberjack2017032620170327 (BBC7)
/7) (BBC7)
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'I'm A Lumberjack' featuring peripatetic English writer, James Lasdun.

When James moved to wooded New York State his wife gave him a chainsaw. He had to either learn to chop down trees or risk his home and garden being taken over by the resurgent forests of the eastern states of the USA.

But how should a clumsy townee, good with his words but not with his hands, take to the woods? With help from some of the champion axemen of the Lumberjack World Championships at Hayward, Wisconsin, he learns the underhand chop, the standing block chop, the hot saw, and much of the wisdom and lore of the world of tall trees and tough men.

Produced in Bristol by Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra chooses 'I'm A Lumberjack' featuring peripatetic Englishman James Lasdun.

In Memoriam, Conversations On A Bench2019051220190513 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects In Memoriam: Conversations on a Bench.

Anna Scott-Brown hears stories of love, loss and hope from the strangers and friends she sits beside on 'Rosie's Bench' in a park in Oxford. The inscription, Rest Awhile and Remember Happy Times Together, draws out reflections and revelations which Michael Symmons Roberts weaves into a poem, specially commissioned for the programme.

Gradually, the story behind the inscription is revealed by Rosie herself as she remembers her husband Chris, whose life the bench commemorates. The experience of others, mixed with her own, turns Rosie's tale into a heartfelt and emotional acknowledgement of the need to stop and communicate with people around us, as life rushes by.

Hidden lives are revealed and common threads recur as Anna Scott-Brown's gentle - but insistent and sometimes extremely direct questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench to 'Rest Awhile'.

Producer: Adam Fowler

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Anna Scott-Brown hears tales of loss and hope, turned to poetry by Michael Symmons Roberts

In Praise Of Limestone2018021820180219 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'In Praise of Limestone' featuring WH Auden's famous poem about the remote Pennine Dales.

After reading it at school, poet Ian McMillan fulfils his ambition to explore the limestone scenery that inspired the poem. Ian walks in Auden's footsteps, revisiting the places that so moved Auden when he was a boy and young man.

Ian meets Tony Sharpe from Lancaster University, who has looked at how the area impacted on Auden's development as a poet. He also meets local writer and Auden enthusiast Robert Forsythe peering down the deep shaft at Haggs Mine, then venturing on in search of the places described in Auden's wartime New Year Letter from America.

Ian meets mining historian Ian Tyler and local poet Josephine Dickinson, whose own work is rooted in the countryside.

Producer: Andrew Carter

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces In Praise of Limestone featuring Auden's famous poem.

In Pursuit Of Edward Thomas2020041220200413 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects In Pursuit of Edward Thomas.

The poet Edward Thomas died at the Battle of Arras just over one hundred years ago on 9th April 1917. He'd been a poet for little more than two years and his collected works amount to only a slim volume. Nevertheless he is regarded as among the greatest of English poets. What made him so? Poet and editor, Matthew Hollis, follows a journey Thomas made by bike in the spring of 1913 from London into south west England. It was a journey that produced a prose book for Thomas, In Pursuit of Spring, but it was also a journey that turned him towards poetry.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best from the BBC's poetry archive.

In Search Of The Wantley Dragon2019022420190225 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'In Search of the Wantley Dragon' - about the the bawdy 17th-century comic poem.

Starting at Barnsley train station, presenter and poet Ian McMillan uncovers long-forgotten violent disputes, a knight clad in locally-made armour, pantomimes, operettas and the eerily quiet dragon's den.

Ian meets the dragon's descendants and learns that, in its day, this Yorkshire-based story was as famous as that of Robin Hood.

Producer: Russell Crewe.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces In Search of the Wantley Dragon.

In The Studio, Lorna Goodison: Jamaican Poet Laureate20230813Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects In the Studio - Lorna Goodison: Jamaican Poet Laureate.

Lorna Goodison was Poet Laureate of Jamaica 2017 - 2020. She decided to mark her first Emancipation Day in the role (2017) with a special poem.

The public holiday of Emancipation Day on the 1st of August commemorates the end of slavery in Jamaica and as a poet who feels it's her duty to document the slave history of her native island in her work, this day is a very important one for Lorna, both professionally and personally – it's also her birthday.

The BBC's Andrea Kidd follows Lorna as she creates a poem fit for a nation.

As someone who can spend years crafting a poem, will she meet her deadline?

Presenter and producer - Andrea Kidd

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

In The Studio, Sharon Olds: Poetry Coming Down My Arm2023111920231120 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses In The Studio - Sharon Olds: Poetry Coming Down My Arm.

The American poet Sharon Olds has been one of the leading voices in contemporary poetry since her first book was published in 1980. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for Stag's Leap, her extraordinary collection of poems chronicling the breakup of her marriage, with its themes of love, family, sorrow, desire and memory, which have echoed throughout her work.

But her career as a poet nearly didn't happen. Her first poems were dismissed by some editors who saw them as not literary enough, perhaps objecting to the intense way she wrote about sexual love and the minutiae of being a woman. But it's precisely those qualities that have won her new generations of fans and critical praise across the world.

After a period of long isolation due to the pandemic, Sharon talks to Emma Kingsley about her work and how lockdown has affected her perception of the world. She describes how she creates new poems and how the words and images travel down her arm and out through the pen.

Presented and produced by Emma Kingsley,

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in October 2020.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra chooses In The Studio - Sharon Olds: Poetry Coming Down My Arm featuring the US poet. From 2020.

India's Beats: The Hungry Generation2018040820180409 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'India's Beats: The Hungry Generation'.

Allen Ginsberg arrived in early 1960s Calcutta to discover a collective of angry young poets whose anti-establishment antics were uncannily reminiscent of his own past.

Over 50 years later, we follow in the footsteps of the Beat Generation to the literary centre of India and go in search of the Hungryalist poets. Who were they? Where did they fit with a rich Bengali literary tradition that includes the great Rabindranath Tagore? What eventually led to their arrests, imprisonment and disbandment?

Eventually the authorities had enough. They were rounded up and arrested on charges of obscenity and conspiracy against the state. Ginsberg attempted to intervene, sending letters of support. US literary journals carried the story and printed Hungryalist poetry. The movement floundered.

But despite this, we discover that the Hungryalist anti-establishment spirit is very much still alive in modern-day Calcutta today.

Producer: Dom Byrne

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces 'India's Beats: The Hungry Generation'.

It's Just Like Watching Brazil1998081720180715/16 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'It's Just Like Watching Brazil'.

Written in verse by Ian MacMillan, this drama documentary charts Barnsley Football Club's first season in the Premiership League.

With Barrie Rutter and Michelle Hardwick.

Producer: Marc Jobst

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the verse written by Ian MacMillan and featuring Barnsley FC.

James Berry, A Story I Am In2020020920200210 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses A Story I Am In featuring Jamaican poet James Berry, OBE. With Hannah Lowe. From 2015.

Hannah Lowe looks at the poetry of James Berry OBE, who came to the UK from Jamaica in 1948.

Berry started to write about his experiences and came to play a key role in bringing Caribbean voices into British poetry, editing two seminal anthologies, 'Bluefoot Traveller' and 'News for Babylon'. At the time of recording Berry had just turned 90, and is slipping into the hidden depths of Alzheimer's Disease but, as A Story I Am In shows, he is aware of people and nature around him.

Next Generation poet and academic Hannah Lowe, herself of part-Jamaican origin, explores how James Berry's poems look to his childhood in rural Jamaica, and reflect on the shock of an England that didn't always know how to accept him. In 1981, he won the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition for the best poem of the year.

Fellow poets John Agard, Grace Nichols and Linton Kwesi Johnson explain how Berry's work and the man himself came to have such a strong influence on them, while Hannah Lowe finds that the poems have helped her trace her own father's journey from Jamaica to London.

As James Berry developed ways to talk of his experiences both in Standard English and Jamaican Patois, the poets discuss how these ways of writing express different feelings and outlooks.

Using archive of Berry reading his own poems and talking about how he came to write poetry, Hannah Lowe seeks out the man and poet. What shines through is a man of great mental strength - genial, kind and acutely aware of the flash points between people.

Producer: Emma-Louise Williams

A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

James Berry, Sir William D'avenant And Wendy Cope2020080920200810 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects three short programmes this week:

* Time for Verse: James Berry

* Time for Verse: Poets Laureate: Sir William D'Avenant

* Three Score and Ten: Wendy Cope.

(1) Time For Verse: James Berry - The last of five programmes in which George MacBeth talks to James Berry about his life and his poetry. Poems: 'Banana And Mackerel'; 'Mek Drum Talk Man

Reader: Mona Hammond

Producer: Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

(2) Time for Verse: Poets Laureate: 2 Sir William D'Avenant (1606-68)

Compiled and presented by Sean Street.

Readers: Martin Jarvis and David Goodland

Producer: - Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

(3) Three Score & Ten - Wendy Cope

Ian McMillan introduces Wendy Cope who reads three of her poems from programmes The Living Poet and Poetry Now, both broadcast in 1988.

Series featuring archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems.

Producer - Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses extracts from the BBC's poetry archive, including Wendy Cope.

Jean Binta Breeze And John Cooper Clarke2002031720180617/18 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Fine Lines showcasing Jean Binta Breeze and John Cooper Clarke.

Dub poet' Jean Binta Breeze meets the 'punk poet' John Cooper Clarke.

Presented by Christopher Cook.

Producer: Katherine Beacon

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Daljit Nagra introduces Fine Lines: Jean Binta Breeze and John Cooper Clarke.

John Betjeman, Poets On Music And Let's Find Out2017100120171002 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive to showcase the work of Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) who was made the UK's Poet Laureate in 1972. Featuring:

Poets on Music presented by Elaine Padmore. First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1974

Let's Find Out hosted by Peter Haigh and featuring teenagers pitching questions to the poet John Betjeman. First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1962.

Daljit Nagra selects programmes featuring John Betjeman.

John Clare: Under The Influence And Thinking On Their Feet2017040220170403 (BBC7)
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BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Under The Influence' and 'Thinking On Their Feet' - featuring the poetry of John Clare.

* Under The Influence:

Alison Brackenbury describes how her lifelong admiration of Northamptonshire poet John Clare has influenced her own verse. First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2009.

* Thinking On Their Feet:

Novelist Richard Francis walks in the footsteps of the poet John Clare and visits Helpston in Northamptonshire. Joined by academic and writer Simon Koveshi, they discuss John's life and work and how walking helped inspire his poetry. First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2002.

Daljit Nagra chooses the poetry of John Clare.

John Dryden, Jean Binta Breeze And Spike Milligan2019081820190819 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses three programmes from the BBC archive : Time for Verse - Poets Laureate: John Dryden presented by Sean Street ; Three Score and Ten featuring Jean Binta Breeze and Time for Verse with Spike Milligan with George MacBeth.

Time for Verse - Poets Laureate: John Dryden - presented by Sean Street

Produced by Margaret Bradley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987

Three Score and Ten featuring Jean Binta Breeze presented by Ian McMillan

Produced by Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016

Time for Verse with Spike Milligan presented by George MacBeth

Produced by Alec Reid.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Daljit Nagra selects John Dryden, Jean Binta Breeze and Spike Milligan.

John Heath-stubbs And Vernon Scannell2021041120210620/21 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poet of the Month: John Heath-Stubbs and Three Score and Ten featuring archive recording of Vernon Scannell.

Poet Of The Month – John Heath-Stubbs:

Described by CH Sissons as 'a Johnsonian with a Miltonic disability', the poet John Heath-Stubbs is also a translator and critic. Clive Wilmer talks to him about his work.

Producer: Fiona McLean

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1991.

Three Score and Ten - Vernon Scannell:

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. From BBC Radio 3's The Poet's Voice, broadcast in 1960, Vernon Scannell reads 'Dejection' and 'A Case of Murder'.

Producer: Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Jubilee Poetry2022060520220606 (BBC7)Selected verses by the Poets Laureate over the ages for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Readers include Juliet Stevenson.

John Dryden - Song: “Why should a foolish marriage vow ?;

C Day Lewis - If Love Means Exploration

Andrew Motion - On the Table;

William Wordsworth - She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways;

Resolution and Independence;

Intimations of Immortality;

It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free;

Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

London, 1802;

Robert Bridges - London Snow;

Robert Southey - The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them.

John Betjeman - In A Bath Teashop;

The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel;

How to Get On in Society

Death of King George V

Alfred Tennyson - In Memoriam;

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington;

The Charge of the Light Brigade;

John Masefield - Sea Fever;

Readers - Samantha Bond; Juliet Stevenson; Samuel West

Producer - Cherry Cookson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Jubilee Poetry with verses by the Poets Laureate over the ages.

Ko Un, The People's Poet Of Korea2013122920160403/04 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Ko Un - The People's Poet of Korea

In South Korea, former Zen monk Ko Un is revered as the people's poet. To mark his 80th birthday, Mike Greenwood explored his prolific output, in particular his epic masterwork, Ten Thousand Lives (Maninbo), in which he has written a poem about everyone he has ever met. Conceived when he was imprisoned in the 1980s for rebelling against the military dictatorships then controlling South Korea, Maninbo has been published in 30 volumes in Korean. Now, for the first time, the first 10 volumes have been translated into English.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Daljit Nagra looks abroad for inspiration and introduces Ko Un - People's Poet of Korea.

Landlocked In Krakow2018120920181210 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Landlocked in Krakow.

Every February, Krakow hosts a Shanties festival. But why in a city that's 800 miles from the sea?

Poet John Hegley tries to fathom out the popular appeal of shanties and the Polish love affair with them.

Producer: Gary Brown

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Landlocked in Krakow with John Hegley. From 2007.

Landmark Poetics2015032920180722/23 (BBC7)An exploration of the increasing amount of poetry in Britain's outdoors.

In the early 90s, for a bet, Lemn wrote a poem for one of his favourite pubs - Hardy's Well in Rusholme, Manchester. Since then, he and many other poets have written more and more for public spaces in Britain - both urban and rural. Travelling to Hebden Bridge, Little Sparta in Lanarkshire, Manchester and London, he asks what these poems are doing in the outdoors, if they really belong there, and who they are for?

Interviews include Simon Armitage talking about the Stanza Stones poems he wrote for the Pennine Watershed, text artist Robert Montgomery, Canal Laureate of the UK Jo Bell, and the letter carver Pip Hall.

Producer: Philippa Geering

Sound Design: Charlie Brandon-King

A Unique production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects Lemn Sissay's meditations on the public role of poetry outdoors.

Learning To Love Dafydd2020030120200302 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Learning to Love Dafydd about the Welsh language Chaucer - Dafydd ap Gellym. Presented by Gwyneth Lewis.

Gwyneth Lewis, the first Welsh Poet Laureate whose giant words light up the front of the Wales Millennium Centre, has never been able to come to terms with the great Welsh language poet Dafydd ap Gwilym.

He's the Welsh equivalent of Chaucer or Shakespeare and has been hugely influential on contemporary Welsh poetry, from Dylan Thomas to the bardic competitions on Radio Cymru. But Gwyneth's teenage self found him sexist and laddish and a representative of a tradition she rebelled against.

As a Welsh language poet Gwyneth feels she can't avoid Dafydd any longer and needs to face him head on. She visits the ruined abbey at Strata Florida in West Wales where he worked and was buried, meets songwriter and former lead singer of Catatonia Cerys Matthews and Welsh poet and language activist Menna Elfyn, and goes in search of him in the poetry competitions at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Actor Steffan Rhodri brings Dafydd ap Gwilym's poetry to life.

Gwyneth tries to come to terms with her heritage and learn to love Dafydd - and see if she can write a poem directly to him.

Producer: Allegra McIlroy

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects Learning to Love Dafydd about the Welsh language Chaucer.

Les Murray And Kit Wright2018031820180319 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra introduces 'Stanza on Stage' featuring Les Murray and Kit Wright.
Lindisfarne: Poetry In Progress2018090220180903 (BBC7)
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Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lindisfarne: Poetry in Progress'.

After four centuries - the Lindisfarne Gospel-book returned to the North-East of England in in 2013 - not as far as the island itself, but to Palace Green Library in Durham.

To mark the occasion, the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts commissioned 12 poets to respond to the book and to the almost-island on which it was created.

Beaty Rubens followed the poets' progress - sharing crab sandwiches and beer on a coach-trip to the island back in the spring and hearing about their progress over the summer and early autumn as they each wrote and recorded their poems.

Finally, she hears from the digital artist who created two installations where the poems could be enjoyed by the public.

This is the story of their Poetry in Progress.

Producer: Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Daljit Nagra introduces the responses of twelve poets to the Lindisfarne Gospel.

Lines Of Resistance2020110120201102 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra delves into the BBC's poetry archives and selects Lines of Resistance.

Writer and poet Bridget Minamore explores how women – particularly women of colour – have pushed back against the poetry establishment to create their own literary narratives.

Poetry as an escape from oppression and as a way to amplify the voices of the overlooked is nothing new. But, so often, resistance writers are male.

How have women in general and women of colour resisted dominant narratives in poetry? And how have they challenged those established voices of dissent to create their own literary spaces for resistance?

The themes explored in the programme range from 21st-century Peckham to ancient Iraq and the slave plantations of the Caribbean, as Bridget goes on a journey to uncover the lines of resistance followed by women throughout history. She talks both to established writers and teenage poets struggling to make their mark.

At the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, south London, poet Malika Booker tells Bridget, 'Story is in our DNA ?. The women of the Octavia poetry collective explain how the internet both helps and hinders the process of creative resistance. With the help of Arabic literature specialist Dr Marlé Hammond and British-Egyptian writer Sabrina Mahfouz, Bridget draws links from Muslim women writing in 11th-century Spain to how Muslim women write in Britain today.

And in a surprising exchange with history professor Eleanor Robson, Bridget discovers that a writer of poetry from 4,000 years ago, long cherished by contemporary feminists, isn't all that she seems to be.

With poems by Sarah Lasoye, Warsan Shire, Malika Booker, Enheduana, Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Seema Begum and Bridget Minamore herself.

Produced by Matthew Teller

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Listen To Them Breathing2019031020190311 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Listen to Them Breathing – an exploration into the Quakers and poetry.

Presenter Sibyl Ruth is a poet who is also a practising Quaker. For many years she thought her poetry had little to do with her Quaker background. But then, after a meeting with the poet and Quaker Dorothy Nimmo, she began to see connections between her Quaker beliefs and the poetry that spoke most clearly to her.

In this programme she goes in search of other poets who are Quakers, to try and find out if there is a relationship between their belief in the Quaker ministry and their writing. She talks to Rosie Bailey about her late partner UA Fanthorpe; to publishers Anne and Peter Sansom about the writing workshops they organise which draw on many of the principles of Quaker meeting; to Gerard Benson, the co-founder of Poems on the Underground, who became a Quaker quite late in life; and to Philip Gross, a line from whose poem 'The Quakers of Pompeii' provides the programme's title.

Producer: Sara Davies

The poems included in the programme are:

Friends Meeting House, Frenchay by UA Fanthorpe

The Black Parrot by Dorothy Nimmo

Pottery Lesson by Dorothy Nimmo

Zero by Philip Gross

Song of Jean by Sybil Ruth

The Quakers of Pompeii by Philip Gross

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Poet Sibyl Ruth explores the connections between the Quakers and poetry.

Listening And Writing, Learning To Think, Three Score And Ten, Sylvia Plath2024031020240311 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects a special collection of programmes across the month featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. And we hear from Daljit's poetry writing students at Brunel University, London.

This week we hear Listening and Writing - Learning to Think with Ted Hughes - a talk by the writer about the poet's way of thinking. Including three poems 'View of a Pig' and 'Wodwo' by Ted Hughes and 'Bare Almond Trees' by DH Lawrence.

Produced for Schools Radio by Sam Langdon

First broadcast on the Third Programme in May 1963

And Three Score and Ten featuring a reading of 'Daddy' by Sylvia Plath in a recording made shortly before her death..

Produced by Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on the Third Programme in September 1963.

Daljit Nagra continues with a choice of programmes featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Daljit Nagra selects Listening and Writing - Learning to Think and 'Daddy' written and read by Sylvia Plath. From 1963.

Liz Lochhead: 'robert Burns' And 'time For Verse'2018012120180122 (BBC7)With Burns Night in mind, poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Elephant in the Poetry Reading with Liz Lochhead on the influence of Robert Burns.

The Elephant In The Poetry Reading:

Liz Lochhead recalls her youth in a Motherwell state school, where reading, memorising, and performing in competitions instilled an appreciation of the work of Robert Burns.

Producer Dave Batchelor.

First heard on BBC Radio 3 in 2009.

Liz Lochhead: Time For Verse 5

George MacBeth concludes his conversation with Liz Lochhead on her life and work.

Reader: Janette Foggo.

Producer - Alec Reid.

First heard on BBC Radio 4 in 1998

Produced for 4 Extra by Sarah Wade.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects The Elephant in the Poetry Reading.

London, Sarah Howe2022081420220815 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra selects Conversations on a Bench with Sarah Howe.

Sarah crafts a poem around stories of hope and home, family and food, told by migrants and British-born Chinese sitting with Anna Scott-Brown on a bench in London's Chinatown outside a bubble tea shop in Gerrard Street.

These hidden stories are glimpsed through snatched moments and the painful and beautiful stories people tell Anna in this busy urban setting - the life on hold of an illegal immigrant, the gambler who has lost everything and found God but who is still fighting his addiction, the woman whose father committed suicide after the handover of Hong Kong to China, the political exile turned lawyer, the successful businessman, the artist and the chef.

Throughout it all, the importance of food and family emerges as people speak of where they find their roots - in Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, London's Chinatown itself - and compare the experiences of being a migrant to Britain with a British-born Chinese.

Hidden lives are revealed and common threads recur as Anna's gentle but insistent questions elicit poignant and profound responses from those sitting on the bench.

Producer Adam Fowler

An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Lord Byron And The Hebrew Melodies2021041820210419 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Lord Byron and the Hebrew Melodies, featuring Byron's best loved works, including She Walks in Beauty.

In 1815, Lord Byron published one of his most famous pieces, She Walks in Beauty. But it didn't appear as part of a collection of poems - in fact it was produced as one of a number of songs in the collection Hebrew Melodies. Byron, tiring of the formula that had brought him huge success in earlier works like Childe Harold's Progress and The Corsair, was approached by Jewish composer Isaac Nathan, who asked him to write religious lyrics to musical settings that were a mixture of contemporary and ancient Synagogue tunes.

Excited by the prospect of examining the Hebrew culture and putting his own deep knowledge of the Old Testament to good use, Byron took up the challenge. He was also keen to impress his future wife, a deeply religious woman who disapproved of his insalubrious lifestyle.

Byron and Nathan struck up a strong relationship and, over the course of the collaboration, produced 29 songs.

Unfortunately for Nathan, Byron's standard publisher, John Murray, wasn't keen to lose their grip on the poet whose work was funding their expansion and, as Michael Rosen discovers, took steps to minimise public recognition of the musical venture, leaving Nathan out of pocket and - for a long time - written out of the Byron story.

Producer: Geoff Bird

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Lost Voices Of Afghanistan2018111820181119 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices of Afghanistan'.

When BBC Correspondent Jonathan Charles made an appeal on BBC World Service for Afghan civilians to send in their war poetry, little did he anticipate the flood of writing it would inspire.

Here, he explores a selection of those poems and interviews the authors.

Producer: Laura Parfitt

A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Jonathan Charles explores the new war poetry written by Afghanistan's civilians.

Lost Voices, Anne Ridler2011041020170917/18 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices: Anne Ridler'.

Brian Patten explores the life and poetry of Anne Ridler, whose quiet and lucid observations of 20th century life are often overlooked.

Born into a literary family, Anne's early employment with the publisher Faber meant that she was working to TS Eliot. Her work, however, is very much in her own distinctive voice: quiet, contemplative, but acute in its observation.

Juliet Stevenson reads a selection of Anne Ridler's poems on themes of the natural world, relationships, the rhythms of human life.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra chooses Anne Ridler, presented by Brian Patten and read by Juliet Stevenson.

Lost Voices, Dom Moraes2016022820160229 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Lost Voices' features Dom Moraes - who arrived in 1950s Soho as an exotic novelty, a beautiful Indian-born poet with a classical English education. He quickly found an outrageous and untameable muse, Henrietta. Their married life together was stormy and ended with Dom literally walking out to buy a packet of cigarettes and moving back to India.

When Brian Patten met him and his third wife there in the mid-1980s, Dom had achieved a kind of peace, but in truth he seemed to be a man who was never quite at home either in India or England. Brian tells Dom's story and presents a selection of his poetry.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voices featuring Indian poet Dom Moraes.

Lost Voices, Harry Fainlight2020010520200106 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Lost Voices: Harry Fainlight who was a young man of rare promise when a trip to America to meet the Beat poets in the early 1960s changed his life forever. He lived a ramshackle, bizarre life but produced sublimely lyrical poetry.

Brian Patten, whose poetry was a celebrated part of the 1960s cultural scene, remembers a contemporary who did not survive the 20th century. Harry Fainlight was a deeply troubled magus and accomplished lyrical poet but he really was his own worst enemy. He upset people, he was upset by imagined slights, he could not bear the thought of publishers selling his work. Brian meets several of Harry's friends and talks to his sister, the successful poet Ruth Fainlight, to get an idea of who Harry really was. He also shares many of Harry's finest poems, all of which are now out of print.

Lost Voices is a series in which poet Brian Patten explores the life and work of lesser-known or forgotten poets.

Reader – Carl Prekopp

Producer – Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Lost Voices, Herbert Read2011041720171112/13 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices: Herbert Read' featuring his First World War poetry.

Herbert Read was a man of many contradictions. Though a dedicated socialist and a committed anarchist, he was knighted by Winston Churchill; he was a pacifist but was twice decorated for bravery in the First World War; he was a strong advocate for Modernism in British art but could not accept the concept of Post Modernism.

His towering presence in the post-war art world (he co-founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts) almost totally eclipsed his abilities as a poet, and yet his son - the writer Piers Paul Read - believes he always thought of himself as a poet.

Presenter Brian Patten - who met Herbert Read towards the end of his life - finds an impressively mature voice; cool in tone but full of humanitarian feeling towards the men - he characterised them as 'children' - involved on both sides.

Poems read by Samuel West.

Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voice, Herbert Read, an unsentimental war poet.

Lost Voices, Molly Holden2010041820170618/19 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Lost Voices' showcasing Molly Holden.

From her early youth to her death in 1981, Molly Holden was an acute, unsentimental but lyrical poet of the natural world. She was influenced by Hardy and Edward Thomas but her poetry was distinctively her own. Her inspiration was topography, archaeology and the ties of the present world with the past.

Molly delighted in the outdoors and it was a huge blow when Multiple Sclerosis first slowed her down, then put her in a wheelchair. She continued to write about the world she could see from her window but increasingly the cruel reality of her situation became evident in her poetry.

Written and presented by Brian Patten.The readers are Annette Badland and Nigel Anthony.

Produced in Bristol by Christine Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voices featuring image maker Molly Holden.

Lost Voices, Padraic Fiacc2010050220190825/26 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Lost Voices: Padraic Fiacc presented by Brian Patten.

Padraic Fiacc was born in Belfast in the mid-1920s and migrated with his family to New York in search of a less violent society - unfortunately they found themselves in the notorious Hell's Kitchen area where social problems were rife and gang warfare raged.

Coming back to Belfast later in his life, Fiacc recognised many of these social problems and was able to write about them with an outsider's eye. His straightforward language and spare, stark style marked him out from the more lyrical poets writing in the great Irish tradition, and for decades he has been cold-shouldered by the literary establishment.

Brian Patten tells the story, illustrated with some of Fiacc's most poignant and sometimes disturbing poems.

Reader: Jonjo O'Neill.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voices presented by Brian Patten featuring Padraic Fiacc.

Lost Voices, Patricia Beer2011042420170903/04 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices: Patricia Beer'.

A fresh evaluation of the work of Patricia Beer by Brian Patten. Her strong, clear poetic voice grew out of a life menaced by insecurity and anger. Her friend, the poet Elaine Feinstein, and her niece, the novelist Patricia Duncker, consider the woman and the poetry.

Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra chooses Brian Patten's re-evaluation of the work of Patricia Beer.

Lost Voices, Rosemary Tonks2016030620160307 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Lost Voices' features Rosemary Tonks. For a female poet in the 1960s Rosemary Tonks was unusually candid about adventures in steamy cafes and illicit hotel bedrooms. She published two extraordinary books of poetry which were heavily influenced by the eroticism of 19th century French poets. And then she fell silent. By the end of the 1970s, she'd disappeared from public life. Brian Patten talks to some other poets about Tonks's writing and asks if it has survived the 1960s. Then, right at the end of the programme, he receives some new information.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voices featuring Rosemary Tonks.

Lost Voices, Wh Davies2009041220160221/22 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Lost Voices' features WH Davies - a very successful poet in the early 20th century, but now remembered, if at all, for one poem - What is this life if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. But as Brian Patten explains, Davies lived an amazing life as a traveller, a tramp, a dreamer and a lover of the natural world. All this is reflected in his poetry which was admired at the time by George Bernard Shaw and Edward Thomas and which later inspired the 15 year old Brian Patten to write.

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lost Voices featuring the travelling, nature-loving poet WH Davies

Lost Voices: Robert Service2018012820180129 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices' featuring Robert Service.

As a young man, Brian Patten was fascinated by the life and work of Robert Service, who in the early years of the 20th century left a banking job in Glasgow for the excitement of the goldrush in the Yukon. He almost immediately found himself working in a bank again, but he was now in a romantic wilderness. In the bars of Whitehorse he heard wonderful stories of life in the Gold Rush which he transmuted into Kipling-inspired verse, and he was soon the best-paid poet in the western world. Yet despite his huge popularity, he remained the self-described 'man who wouldn't fit in'.

Now, though honoured in Canada, Robert Service's work is almost forgotten.

Poems read by James Cosmo.

Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Lost Voices featuring Robert Service.

Louis Macneice2019060220190603 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting two programmes. First, Third Programme producer, Louis MacNeice reads two of his poems recorded in 1949, Snow and Prayer Before Birth.

Taken from Louis MacNeice: Three Score And Ten a fifty part series in which Ian McMillan presents recordings of poets and poetry to celebrate 70 years of Radio 3's recordings since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946.

Producer - Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

and Twenty Minutes - Homer In A Dudley Accent presented by Paul Farley.

Louis MacNeice lived in Birmingham in the early 1930s teaching Classics at the University. Despite his ambivalent relationship with the city, the years he spent there were to prove critical in both his personal and poetic life. The poet Paul Farley goes in search of MacNeice's “hazy city ?.

Producer - Emma Harding.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004.

Two programmes featuring the radio producer and poet Louis MacNeice.

Lyrical Ballads, 1-5 The Nature Of Inspiration1998101220161106/07 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with a rare double-act in poetry.

October 1798 saw the publication of one of the foundations of British romanticism: Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. Steve Connor begins his exploration of why this slim volume made such a profound impression on English literature and thought.

Producers: Julian May and Abigail Appleton.

First broadcast on Radio 3 in October 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces a double act in poetry and selects Postscript - Lyrical Ballads.

Lyrical Ballads, 3-5 Poverty And Politics2016112020161121 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Poverty and Politics.

Steve Connor explores the effect on English literature and thought of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.

Producers: Julian May and Abigail Appleton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 1998.

Daljit Nagra continues with a rare double act in poetry.

Lyrical Ballads, 4-5 Conversation And Collaboration2016112720161128 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Conversation and Collaboration.

Steve Connor explores the effect on English literature and thought of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.

Producers: Julian May and Abigail Appleton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 1998.

Daljit Nagra selects Postscript - Lyrical Ballads: Conversation and Collaboration.

Lyrical Ballads, 5-5 Man And Nature2016120420161205 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Man and Nature.

Steve Connor concludes his exploration of the effect on English literature and thought of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.

Producers: Julian May and Abigail Appleton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 1998.

Daljit Nagra selects Postscript - Lyrical Ballads: Man and Nature.

Lyrical Ballads, Children And Childhood2016111320161114 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Children and Childhood.

Steve Connor explores the effect on English literature and thought of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads.

Producers: Julian May and Abigail Appleton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 1998.

Daljit Nagra revisits Lyrical Ballads: Children and Childhood presented by Steve Connor.

Maadai-kara2009010420181007/08 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Maadai-Kara - an ancient epic Siberian poem with an oral tradition.

Described as an altai poem which involves throat singing - Benjamin Zephaniah goes on a journey to learn more about the epic, and about the great reciters of the poem.

Producer: Kevin Dawson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Maadai-Kara, an ancient Siberian tale from oral folklore.

Make Perhaps This Out Sense Of Can You2020080220200803 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archives and selects Make Perhaps This Sense of Can You with experimental poet Bob Cobbing.

Bob's playful experiments with sound and text have inspired a generation of poets, artists and composers. A writer whose work skittered between literature and music, poetry and artwork - he is, perhaps, best remembered for his extraordinary poetry readings. With his operatic, resonant voice he would boom, howl, chant and whisper leaving his audience enchanted and enraged in equal measures.

In this programme, we delve into the work of Bob Cobbing - exploring his influence on the publishing world, his role in one of the most turbulent periods at the Poetry Society and the visual poem that outraged Margaret Thatcher.

Revered and reviled - he has been a controversial figure at times. In this feature the writers Iain Sinclair, Peter Finch, Alan Brownjohn and Paula Claire, amongst others, reflect on the musicality of his work, how he challenged the conventional notion of poetry and the surprising controversy sound and visual poetry caused in the 20th Century.

Producer: Eleanor McDowall

A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives.

Man Versus God2019120120191202 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Man Versus God featuring Muhammad Iqbal's Islamic poem Shikwa.

Storyteller Seema Anand explores Shikwa, one of the most famous and enduring works of Islamic literature. The poem is an audacious and heartfelt complaint in lyrical Urdu about all the many ways in which God has let Muslims down.

When it was first recited by Iqbal at a public gathering in Lahore in 1911, a fatwa was issued by Islamic scholars who were shocked by its seemingly outrageous impudence: here was Man daring to challenge the wisdom of God!

Like many works by Iqbal, the poem is presented as a dialogue between Man and God, a quite revolutionary concept in Islamic literature and with echoes of Milton's Paradise Lost. Iqbal felt strongly that Islam should be open to reform and questioning - and many of his ideas are as powerfully relevant today as they were 100 years ago.

Iqbal is often called the spiritual father of Pakistan for using poetry to raise self-awareness amongst Muslims in pre-partition India so that they would eventually rise up and seek a separate nation. His poems are still recited at social gatherings all across the Muslim world (Shikwa is now even available as an iPhone app) but his poetry has a much wider appeal than just for Muslims. It contains many universal ideas about the relationship between Man, Earth and Divinity which resonate to this day.

Seema Anand (who is not Muslim) is learning to translate the poem with the dream that one day she too will be able to recite it and bring it to new audiences in Britain. Despite the challenge of learning a poem in a language she barely knows and with intricate imagery and ideas drawn from earlier Sufi and Persian poets, it's something she pursues because she's convinced the beauty of the verse nourishes the soul.

Contributors: Professor Javed Majeed, Navid Akhtar

Readings by Sagar Arya, Saeed Jaffrey and Pervaiz Alam

Producer: Mukti Jain Campion

A Culturewise production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects Man Versus God featuring Muhammad Iqbal's epic poem Shikwa.

Michael Longley2016103020161031 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with a profile of Michael Longley.

In Poet of the Month, Michael Longley in conversation with Clive Wilmer, about his poetry career and collection of poems, Gorse Fires

Producer: Fiona McLean

First broadcast on Radio 3 in June 1991.

Daljit Nagra introduces Poet of the Month, Michael Longley, presented by Clive Wilmer.

Miles Jupp's Muscular Lines2021072520210726 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and this week selects Miles Jupp's Muscular Lines.

Can a book of poetry for boys which inspired young men at the beginning of the 20th century work its magic on a new generation?

Comedian Miles Jupp revisits his old prep school with a book of Muscular Lines to see if the stirring verse about battles, exploration and moral values is relevant today. Some of today's heroes and explorers reveal the poems that keep them going when times get tough.

Reader - Leslie Barr

Producer - David Stenhouse

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Morning Has Broken2021092620210927 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.
Moss Side Gym Stories, 1. Men's Morning2024012820240129 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Moss Side Gym Stories ep 1/2 featuring Mike Garry performing his epic poem 'Men's Morning' in its place of conception, Manchester's Moss Side Leisure Centre.

Moss Side is a small neighbourhood just outside Manchester's city centre. In the 19th century Elizabeth Gaskell, inspired by the area, made her literary debut with the novel Mary Barton. She described Moss Side as a place of rural charm where Victorian workers and their families came to talk, play and relax. By the later part of the 20th century, the green fields that Gaskell knew had been replaced by housing estates, and Moss Side's reputation for riots, gangs and guns had spread nationwide.

Growing up in Moss Side, Manchester's award winning poet Mike Garry, saw another side. Among its terraced rows Mike discovered a place where he could hear an echo of the qualities that caused Gaskell to put pen to paper - the Moss Side Leisure Centre.

Mike returns to the leisure centre to perform his epic poem, 'Men's Morning', an ode to the Friday morning male patrons of the centre. He spends time with the men who use the gym today to discover what, if anything has changed since he wrote the poem 20 years ago.

Produced by Claire Press and Ekene Akalawu

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses another highlight from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra chooses Moss Side Gym Stories ep 1/2 featuring Mike Garry and his epic poem 'Men's Morning'. From 2016.

Moss Side Gym Stories, 2. Moss Side Mirrors2024020420240205 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry extra and chooses Moss Side Gym Stories with Jackie Kay inspired by Manchester's Moss Side Leisure Centre.

Plus Daljit reads a poem from this month's Poetry Extra Book of the Month - an anthology of poems:- Out of Sri Lanka.

Jackie Kay, acclaimed writer and formerly Scotland's Makar, writes a poem, commissioned by the BBC and inspired by the women who use Manchester's Moss Side Leisure Centre.

Close to the Centre are streets named in honour of one of the city's most famous residents, Elizabeth Gaskell, who moved to Manchester in the 1830s and knew these streets, as fields. In her debut novel, Mary Barton, Gaskell described this area as a place of serene rural beauty, where Manchester's families would come to walk, talk, rest and rejuvenate.

By the later part of the 20th century, the green fields had been replaced by housing estates. Moss Side's reputation for riots, gangs and guns spread nationwide but its ability to inspire writers remained intact, and a peaceful oasis - otherwise known as the Moss Side Leisure Centre - could still be found.

Jackie Kay premieres her 21st century response - Moss Side Mirrors - an ode to the women who, like their 19th century antecedents immortalised by Elizabeth Gaskell, have found in this neighbourhood a place to escape from the pressures of daily life - to breathe deeply, unwind, and renew themselves.

Produced at BBC Salford by Claire Press and Ekene Akalawu.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra chooses Moss Side Gym Stories with Jackie Kay inspired by Manchester's Moss Side Leisure Centre. From 2016.

Mother Tongue, A Sense Of Belonging2022040320220404 (BBC7)Each week the poet Daljit Nagra selects an inspiring programme from the BBC's poetry archive. This week he chooses an edition of Mother Tongue: A Sense of Belonging - the globe-trotting poetry series with Imtiaz Dharker. The poet explores exciting voices from around the world in their own languages and in translation.

Imtiaz hears poems written in Catalan, Turkish, Kurdish and Livonian – an endangered language from the Baltic coast. As she thinks about the phrase 'A Sense of Belonging', she discovers how homelands and ties of the heart have inspired these three poets.

Catalan poet Manuel Forcano draws his inspiration from countries of the Middle East and North Africa. From Barcelona, he tells Imtiaz about his connection to ancient civilisations and why his poems are often charged with a heady eroticism. He reads poems from his collection Maps of Desire, translated by Anna Crowe.

Bejan Matur writes in both Turkish and Kurdish. She grew up in South East Turkey in a Kurdish Alevi family, and her almost mystical poems engage with the experience of the Kurdish people in Turkey. The English versions are read by the translator, poet Jen Hadfield courtesy of the Poetry Translation Centre. Canan Marasligil produced the literal translations from Turkish to English.

Finally, there's Valts Ernštreits who writes poems in the Livonian language. It's an ancient Finnic language, once widely spoken in Latvia but now classified as 'critically endangered' by UNESCO. Valts talks to Imtiaz about his proud heritage and being part of possibly the smallest literature group in Europe. The English versions of his poems are read by the translator, Ryan Van Winkle.

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, Bodies In Motion2020082320201025/26 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects episode one of Mother Tongue - a globe-trotting poetry series.

Poet Helen Mort hears poetry in Arabic, German and Spanish while thinking about the phrase 'Bodies in Motion'. Helen discovers how movement through space and time filters through the work of some very different poets.

She meet Syrian poet Golan Haji in Paris. He's drawn inspiration from many sources, including Bill Viola's video art and a pet ram. Being multilingual, for him, every piece of writing is an act of translation. They meet up with veteran American poet and translator Marilyn Hacker, to hear her version of a Haji poem and talk about the friendship struck up through this translation partnership.

A journey to the centre of the Earth; watching the Berlin Wall fall on a badly tuned TV; and a futuristic German language, have all inspired poems by the compelling German poet and performer, Ulrike Almut Sandig.

Exploring the fascinating process of translating a poem into another language, Helen takes part in a poetry translation workshop at the Poetry Translation Centre in London.

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in July 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, Close Encounters2021062720210628 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects an edition from the globe-trotting poetry series - Mother Tongue.

Poet Helen Mort explores poems in Somali, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese and Polish - and in translation.

Reflecting on the phrase 'Close Encounters', she explores how the very stuff of being human - relationships, identity, empathy - play a part in the work of these four distinct poets.

Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is fast emerging as one of the most outstanding Somali-language poets writing today. Her bold and striking poems are translated by British poet Clare Pollard. They join Helen to talk about the place of poetry in Somali culture and their translation partnership, which came about through the Poetry Translation Centre. With poems from her collection The Sea Migrations.

Helen then travels to Paris to meet the Syrian poet Maram al-Masri and hear poems from her collection Barefoot Souls, which imagines the lives of women who have experienced domestic violence, and from Liberty Walks Naked, al-Masri's response to recent events in Syria.

There's deadpan humour from Angelica Freitas, a brilliantly wry voice from Brazil. She takes a novel approach to exploring female identity in her poem A Woman Goes, and a bittersweet reflection on being alone in I Sleep With Myself.

We also hear a lost poem from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It's one of a small number of previously unpublished poems recently discovered among his papers and published in the collection Then Come Back.

Finally, one of the brightest stars in Polish literature - a poet, translator and novelist, Jacek Dehnel. His is an eclectic sort of empathy, with poems about the death of a world-famous musician and a lurid museum exhibit. And we hear his Polish translation of a very famous Philip Larkin poem.

Readers: Raghad Chaar and Alejandro de Mesa

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, Double Takes2022100920221010 (BBC7)Globe-trotting poetry series, presented by poet Imtiaz Dharker.

In this episode, Imtiaz hears poets from Poland, Cuba and Taiwan - in their original language and in translation. Starting with the phrase Double Takes, she reflects on how these three poets have the knack of making their readers look, and look again, at the world around them - shifting perspectives with their idiosyncratic takes on details and experiences.

Imtiaz speaks to Adam Zagajewski, widely considered to be the leading Polish poet of his generation. He writes with great humanity and wry humour, with the ability to elevate the most ordinary things, such as airports and sandals, to epic levels. He takes a walk around his home city, Krakow, and talks about his approach to writing poetry. With poems from his collection, Asymmetry, translated by Clare Cavanagh.

We also hear poems from Legna Rodriguez Iglesias, an up-and-coming Cuban voice, now living in Miami. Her intense and sometimes unnerving work often has an absurdist focus on close-up details. Imtiaz speaks to the poet Abigail Parry who, with Serafina Vick, has translated a new selection of Rodriguez's poems in a collection called A Little Body are Many Parts.

Finally, there's Amang Hung, a Taiwanese poet and filmmaker who writes with playful and inventive flair about nature, the digital world and her life in Taipei. She reads poems from her collection Raised by Wolves. The English translations are by Steve Bradbury.

Reader: Vera Chok.

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects gems from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, Lost And Found20230910Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Mother Tongue - Lost and Found.

Poet Imtiaz Dharker hears poems written in Persian, Korean and Torwali - an endangered language, indigenous to Pakistan.

Starting with the phrase 'Lost and Found', she reflects on how ideas of memory, loss and preservation have inspired these poets.

Imtiaz speaks to Azita Ghahreman, an Iranian poet now living in Sweden.

Her poems address themes of loss and exile, drawing on experiences of Iran's book-burning years and tender memories of family and her childhood. The poems featured are from her collection Negative of a Group Photograph, with the English versions read by the translator, poet Maura Dooley. They were paired by the Poetry Translation Centre. Elhum Shakerifar produced the literal translations.

Kim Hyesoon is South Korea's leading poet.

Her latest collection, Autobiography of Death, is an intense and startling sequence of poems, representing the forty-nine days during which, according to Buddhist belief, the spirit roams after death. She was driven to write them by the anger she felt at the deaths from the sinking of the Sewol ferry in South Korea, in 2014. Imtiaz speaks to Kim Hyesoon along with the translator, poet Don Mee Choi.

Finally, we hear poems in the Torwali language, an indigenous language from the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan which appears on UNESCO's list of endangered languages.

Activist Zubair Torwali has collected several hundred ancient Zo poems from local elders, as part of his work to preserve and revive the Torwali language. We hear from British poet Chris McCabe, who has translated some of them and has edited an anthology of poetry in endangered languages, Poems from the Edge of Extinction, in which they appear.

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, The Observing Eye2020112920201130 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra explores the BBC's poetry archive and selects Mother Tongue ep 2/6 the globe-trotting poetry series presented by Helen Mort.

Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Persian, Spanish, German and Chinese - and in translation - all inspired by the everyday objects and people around them. She considers how through the observing eye of poetry, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Tea bags, mushrooms and mosquitoes have all inspired German poet Jan Wagner. His poems give surprising perspectives on the most commonplace objects - they are witty, compassionate and novel. Wagner reads from his collection Self-Portrait with a Swarm of Bees, and talks about the process of translation between German and English.

Nicknamed the Poet of Objects in his native Iran, Iraj Ziayi writes about ordinary household items - chairs, slippers - with heightened intensity. In his poem Six Green Polish Chairs, a collection of childhood memories are triggered by the sight of a particular shade of green. Alireza Abiz translates from the Persian.

Helen Mort travels to Oxford to speak to Theophilus Kwek. Kwek is a young poet and translator from Singapore, whose version of Moving House by Malayan-born poet Wong Yoon Wah, recently won second place in the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation. Moving House explores the ordinary details of a house move, with a fascinating personal and political subtext.

Finally, there's poetry by Oscar Cruz, direct from the streets of Santiago de Cuba. Speaking to Cruz's translator Serafina Vick, Helen Mort learns about his mission to bring the everyday life and language of his city - in all its frank reality - into his poems. Muy caliente!

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, The State We're In2021091220210913 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra selects Mother Tongue - The State We're In. From the globe trotting poetry series presented by Imtiaz Dharker. From 2019.

Poet Imtiaz Dharker explores exciting voices from around the world in their own languages and in translation.

In this episode, she hears poems written in Icelandic, in Hindustani from India, and in Amharic from Ethiopia. While thinking about the phrase 'The State We're In', she explores how these three poets have written about injustices and citizenship in very different ways.

There's Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir, an impressive young voice from Reykjavik's vibrant poetry scene. She serves up perceptive social criticism and environmental concern with wry humour and understated Scandinavian dread. Imtiaz talks to her about poems inspired by the Icelandic financial crisis of 2008 and internet search engines. The English translations are by KB Thors.

Hussain Haidry is a spoken word poet living in Mumbai. In his poem Hindustani Musalmaan, or Indian Muslim, he explores the many influences that make up his identity and refuses to be defined by just one aspect – being a Muslim. It struck a chord a couple of years ago when it was widely shared on social media. Imtiaz talks to him and recalls her time living in Mumbai.

Finally, Imtiaz discovers Ethiopia's rich tradition of 'wax and gold' poetry, where satire runs just below the superficial meaning. We hear poems with a political twist from Zewdu Milikit, a poet from the ancient city of Gondar in the north west of Ethiopia. The translations from the original Amharic are by poet Chris Beckett, who we also hear.

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Mother Tongue, Tracks Of Time2021022820210301 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Mother Tongue the globe-trotting poetry series presented by Helen Mort.

Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Macedonian, Old Norse and Russian - and in translation. Reflecting on the phrase 'tracks of time', she discovers how memory and history play a part in the work of these three poets.

Helen travels to Berlin to meet the Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov. Described as one of most powerful voices in contemporary European poetry, he writes with great lyrical depth, insight and originality. In his collection 'Remnants of Another Age', he reflects on the history of his Balkan homeland and on ideas of shelter and nomadism with a restless, timeless intelligence.

Heading up the North Sea coast to Aberdeen, we hear Scottish poet Ian Crockatt reading his fresh versions of the Old Norse verses of Rognvaldr, Earl of Orkney. The collection, 'Crimsoning the Eagle's Claw', is a treasure trove of vivid snapshots of the life of this twelfth century poet, lover, nobleman and sailor. Like meeting a Viking face-to-face.

Finally, Helen travels to Oxford to meet one of Russia's foremost contemporary poets, Maria Stepanova and her translator, Sasha Dugdale. Stepanova writes formally inventive and thoughtful poetry, teeming with references from her country's cultural memory and political history. Through her journalism and editorship of an independent, crowdfunded site, she is also an important liberal voice.

Producer: Caroline Hughes

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Murmur2020012620200127 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting 'Murmur' in which Julia Blackburn reads her poem about the death of her husband and flocks of winter starlings.

Not long after her husband died she found herself drawn to write a series of poems about his last years and his life. At the same time near their Suffolk home Julia watched the great seething and pulsing of winter starling murmurations. Without expecting it she also found that the starlings flew into her poem and began to help her make sense of her husband's death.

Her book of poems is called: Murmurations of Love, Grief and Starlings. She reads it, talks about her husband and tries to hear the sound of ten thousand starlings wheeling through the dusk of a winter's day.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

My Muse, Kathryn Williams On Sylvia Plath2023021220230213 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses: My Muse - Kathryn Williams on Sylvia Plath.

The award-winning singer songwriter Kathryn Williams was motivated to write an entire album, Hypoxia, by the work of the poet Sylvia Plath.

Kathryn was commissioned to write some songs for the Durham Book Festival to mark the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's death and the publication of her novel, The Bell Jar. She wanted to write something that got away from the popular tragic image of Sylvia Plath who killed herself at the age of just 30.

Instead Kathryn wanted to focus on the writing. Plath is considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.

Once the commission was over Kathryn couldn't stop writing and decided these songs would be her next album. She got stuck and called on the singer songwriter and producer Ed Harcourt for help, who features in this programme.

Kathryn also speaks to Andrew Wilson author of Mad Girl's Love Song, a biography of Plath's early life. They meet at Parliament Hill Fields, one of the many places in England that inspired Plath.

Another is Hardcastle Crags in West Yorkshire where Kathryn goes on a walk with the poet Sarah Corbett, author of And She Was. For the first time - and amidst cracking thunder - Kathryn visits the grave of Sylvia Plath along with Gail Crowther, author of The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath.

Kathryn wants to concentrate on Plath's work, not her death, so ends with Deryn Rees-Jones, also a poet and a critic and Professor of Poetry at Liverpool University, where a collection of some of Plath's manuscripts are held.

Producer: Nicola Swords

BBC Radio Production North.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects interesting programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

National Poetry Day 20162016100220161003 (BBC7)Sarah Howe, Maura Dooley and Denise Riley join Daljit Nagra to mark National Poetry Day.
Necessary To My Happiness2022082820220829 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry library and selects Necessary to My Happiness.

Poet Michael Symmons Roberts tells the story of Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter Allegra, who was only five when she died in an Italian convent.

Michael goes to Ravenna to find out how Byron came to abandon her, and how she came to haunt his imagination (and that of fellow Romantic Percy Bysshe Shelley).

Through visiting the Palazzo Guiccioli in Ravenna, where Byron lived for a time, and the convent at Bagnacavallo where Allegra died, Michael discovers evidence for her as a spirited little girl, who wrote heartbreaking letters to her father, pleading with him to visit her.

In this documentary, Allegra gets her own voice at last. . .

Music composed by Dr Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones (discrete machines)

Allegra was played by Alexandra Mathie

Producer: Faith Lawrence

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra chooses interesting programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

News That Stays News2021090520210906 (BBC7)It was Ezra Pound who wrote: 'Literature is news that stays news.' What would the news sound like if poets had a go?

Ritula Shah presents the news with poets. She is joined by BBC correspondents Lyse Doucet, Allan Little and Norman Smith, and a lyrical line-up that includes Wendy Cope, Ian McMillan, Caleb Femi, Gillian Clarke and Maura Dooley.

Featured poems:

The Newspaper by George Crabbe

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth

Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide by Maura Dooley

From: The Silvering

Publ: Bloodaxe Books

Sporty People by Wendy Cope

Smashed to a Pulp by Mohammod Ullah

The Day that Twitter went down by Brian Bilston

From: You Took the Last Bus Home

Publ: Unbound

Coping by Caleb Femi

The People's Shipping Forecast by Murray Lachlan Young

From the Republic of Conscience by Seamus Heaney

From: The Haw Lantern

Publ: Faber

Futility by Wilfred Owen

Letter by Hugh McMillan

From: The Other Creatures in the Wood

Publ: Mariscat

The Only News I Know by Emily Dickinson

And original poetry composed for this programme by Gillian Clarke and Ian McMillan.

Producer: Camellia Sinclair

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

No Coward Soul, By Emily Bronte2019061620190617 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Adventures in Poetry - No Coward Soul by Emily Bronte.

Peggy Reynolds finds out how Emily Bronte's bold and haunting poem 'No Coward Soul' makes its impact and discusses its role in the myth that has grown up around the author.

Contributors: Brian Blessed, Prof Isabel Armstrong, Prof Steven Connor, Stevie Davies, Ann Dinsdale, Alice Arnold.

Producer – Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry - No Coward Soul by Emily Bronte. From 2001.

No Ideas But In Things: The Poetry Of William Carlos Williams2021051620210517 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects No Ideas But In Things: The Poetry of William Carlos Williams.

Presented by poet Annie Freud, with the former American Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and poets August Kleinzahler and Mark Ford.

William Carlos Williams is known as a revolutionary figure in poetry but, in comparison to his friend Ezra Pound and American writers including TS Eliot and Gertrude Stein, who sought a more exciting environment for creativity in Europe, Williams lived a strikingly conventional life.

A doctor for more than 40 years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients and the America around him to create a distinctively American verse. His lifelong quest was that poetry should mirror the speech of the American people.

A second generation immigrant, he sought to make something of the people and for the people in America.

Williams' sense of ordinary people, living in a real place not an imagined city of ancient relics and memory, defined America for him and infused his work. He got rid of the high blown poetic language of Europe, paring down his verse to essential, unemotional, broken lines. His famous poem The Red Wheelbarrow, published in 1923, is 16 words on 8 lines.

He was awarded the Pullitzer prize for poetry, posthumously, in the year he died 1963.

He is America's first true poet.

Producer: Kate Bland

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2012.

Join Daljit Nagra as he selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Nobody Told Me To Oil My Boots2008110920170205/06 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses the work of Isaac Rosenburg.

Sir Antony Sher tells the story of the First World War poet, whose reputation has been overshadowed by many of his better-known contemporaries - but was described by one of them, Siegfried Sassoon, as a genius.

He enlisted as a private to escape the poverty of London's East End and, besides the sufferings of army life, also had to come to terms with the anti-Semitism directed at him by his comrades.

Rosenberg's experiences are illuminated by both Sher's reading of some of his poems and also the letters he wrote to friends and family.

Reader: Simon Schatzberger.

Producer: Peter Hoare

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra introduces Nobody Told Me To Oil My Boots, presented by Sir Antony Sher.

No-one Left And No-one Came2017040920170410 (BBC7)
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Edward Thomas died exactly 100 years ago on the battlefields of the First World War. To commemorate that moment, BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Thomas's uneventful poem about inactivity and solitude 'No One Left and No One Came'.

In Edward Thomas's poem Adlestrop a train stops, there's a hiss of steam, someone clears his throat and a blackbird sings. And that's it. Yet this 16 line poem is one of the best-loved in English, inspiring articles, pilgrimages to the Cotswold village and many other poems. Anne Harvey tells the story of how it came to be written and explores the fascination of a short poem in which nothing happens but which deals with large themes: memory, time, naming, sound - and fear.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Daljit Nagra selects Edward Thomas's No-One Left and No-One Came.

Norn But Not Forgotten, Sounds Of Shetland2010082920171015/16 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Norn But Not Forgotten, Sounds of Shetland'.

The dialect of the Shetland Islands is one of the most distinctive spoken within the British Isles: heavily accented, and studded with words left over from the now extinct Norn language which was spoken on the islands until the late 18th century. Even now, reaching for expressions to describe the natural world, places, the seasons of the year, food, tools, colours, moods or states of agitation or excitement, Shetlanders will often use Norn words.

Kathleen Jamie visits Shetland to meet up with the poets who revel in the language, both those born on the island and those who've moved there.

Shetland, and its distinctive accents and words, has proved surprisingly receptive to poets from mainland Scotland and England who have chosen to make it home. What is it about the Shetland dialect that so excites and fascinates poets? Kathleen asks the TS Eliot award-winning poet Jen Hadfield, who was born in Cheshire, and Raman Mundair, who was born in Ludhiana in India and came to live in Glasgow at the age of five, about choosing to write about Shetland's distinctive landscape, people and way of life in its own tongue.

Kathleen also meets acclaimed Shetland language poet Christine De Luca who was raised on the island and who has made the opposite journey, leaving the rugged landscape of the island to live and work on the mainland.

Rich with the sounds - and not just the language - of the islands, Kathleen Jamie explores how this dense linguistic community has managed to excite and engage some of Britain's leading poets.

Producer: Mark Rickards

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Kathleen Jamie discovers the appeal of the local dialect for poets in the Shetland Islands

North: Catherine Heaney On Seamus Heaney2018090920180910 (BBC7)
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Daljit Nagra welcomes Catherine Heaney into 4 Extra's Poetry Extra studio to discuss life growing up with her father, the Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney.

And we hear 'North' featuring Seamus Heaney, first broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster in 1975.

Produced by Sarah Wade for BBC Radio 4 Extra and first broadcast in September 2018.

Daljit Nagra talks to Catherine Heaney about her father. Plus 'North' with Seamus Heaney.

Oh What A Lively War2010110420160605/06 (BBC7)
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits BBC radio's poetry archive with 'Oh What a Lively War' profiling First World War poet, Guillaume Apollinaire.

One of the most famous lines in French poetry was written by Guillaume Apollinaire in the summer of 1915. His 'Ah Dieu! que la guerre est jolie' is roughly translated as 'Oh! What a lovely war!', but unlike the famous English musical, Apollinaire's line was devoid of irony. Here was a young poet revelling in the excitement, the sheer modernism, of warfare. It's a sentiment very much at odds with our British legacy of war poetry from that time, and it's one that Martin Sorrell, translator of Apollinaire, unpicks with Professors Susan Harrow and Tim Kendall, and American poet Brian Turner, who served in the US army in Iraq.

Apollinaire was already a well-known poet and leading champion of Cubism when he enlisted in December 1914. His war came to an end in March 1916, when he received a shrapnel wound to the head. He was invalided out, trepanned, made only a partial recovery, and died in November 1918, almost the same day as Wilfred Owen,

His early war poetry of 1914 and 1915 is infused with the marvel and spectacle of war, and continues the experiments with form that made him one of France's great literary innovators. It also celebrates his rich, complicated love life. His letters to the two women with whom he was simultaneously involved are fascinating records of a passionate patriot and an equally passionate lover. It was only as the war progressed and he experienced his own horrifying injury that the poems began to recognise the misery of the trenches and horror of technological warfare.

Reader: Paul McGann

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Martin Sorrell explores the work of French First World War poet Guillaume Apollinaire.

Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats 2-2-letters To A Young Poet: Moniza Alvi2020122020201221 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects two programmes this week. Firstly part 2/2 of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats read by Jeremy Irons and The Essay featuring Moniza Alvi: Letters To A Young Poet.

On Christmas Day 1937, nearly two years before book publication, five of T.S Eliot's Practical Cats poems were broadcast as readings by Geoffrey Tandy on BBC Radio. The Radio Times wrote' For some time past Mr Eliot has been amusing and instructing the offspring of some of his friends in verse on the subject of cats. These poems are not the kind that have been usually associated with his name'. Over 75 years later, one of our greatest actors, Oscar- winning Jeremy Irons re-visits the original poems.

In part two you can hear five poems featuring Gus: The Theatre Cat, The Old Gumbie, CatBustopher Jones: The Cat about Town, Cat Morgan introduces himself and The Ad-dressing of Cats.

Producer: Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day 2015.

The Essay - Moniza Alvi: Letters To A Young Poet

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, leading poets write a personal letter to a young poet to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art..

Today, Pakistan-born Moniza Alvi.

The original Letters to a Young Poet is a compilation of letters by Rainer Maria Rilke, written between 1902 and 1908 to a 19-year-old officer cadet called Franz Kappus. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality.

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire.

Producer - Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats, 1-22020121320201214 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects part one of TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

On Christmas Day 1937, nearly two years before book publication, five of TS Eliot's Practical Cats poems were broadcast as readings by Geoffrey Tandy on BBC Radio. The Radio Times wrote:

For some time past Mr Eliot has been amusing and instructing the offspring of some of his friends in verse on the subject of cats. These poems are not the kind that have been usually associated with his name'.

Now one of our greatest actors, Oscar winning Jeremy Irons revisits the original five poems along with the further ten that make up the Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

You'll hear much-loved familiar characters like Growltiger, Mungojerrie, Rumpleteaser, Old Deutoronomy, Mr Mistoffelees, Macavity Gus and Skimbleshanks. These notorious cats lurk in shadows, baffle Scotland Yard, dance by the light of the moon and who must not be woken. They're found on trains, in the theatre, in the high street. They juggle, sleep, conjure, are curious and bore - but all show another side of one of our most important British poets.

TS Eliot's poems have been enjoyed by many in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, but here we return to the poems without any music and celebrate the inventiveness in the original words.

* The Naming of Cats

* Skimbleshanks The Railway Cat

* Growltiger's Last Stand

* The Rum Tum Tugger

* The Song of the Jellicles

* Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer

* Old Deuteronomy

* Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles

* Mr Mistoffelees

* Macavity: The Mystery Cat

Directed at BBC Salford by Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Particle Poets And Molecular Metaphors2018120220181203 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Particle Poets and Molecular Metaphors.

From Einstein's theory of molecular relativity to the hunt for the Higgs Boson, atomic science has influenced poetry more than any other social, economic or political force over the last century.

With the help of the former Welsh laureate, Gwyneth Lewis, Professor Peter Middleton, poet Gitte Broeng, Nobel physicist Murray Gell-Man, and Thomas Otto from CERN, and examples of poems by James Joyce, Arthur Sze and David Ignatow, Anna McNamee explores the strong connections between physics and poetry.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Atomic science as poetic inspiration.

Paul Celan In Mapesbury Road2016052220160523 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Paul Celan in Mapesbury Road'.

What brought one of the most compelling modern European poets to a perfectly ordinary street in North London? Who did he visit there? And what made him write a poem about the experience? Writer Toby Litt investigates this most improbable of brief encounters between Paul Celan, the master elegist of 20th century Jewish experience and Britain at the end of the Sixties.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces Paul Celan in Mapesbury Road - Europe's master elegist.

Paul Durcan, Christmas Day2016121220161211 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Paul Durcan's Christmas Day.

In three parts, Paul begins reading his book-length poem that sets out a funny, sweetly sad and often irreverent vision of Christmas.

Accustomed to loneliness, Paul accepts his friend Frank's invitation for Christmas lunch.

First broadcast on Radio 3 in December 1997.

Daljit Nagra selects Paul Durcan's reading of his poem Christmas Day.

Paul Durcan, Christmas Day 2-32016121920161218 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Paul Durcan's Christmas Day.

Paul continues reading from his book-length poem that sets out a funny, sweetly sad and often irreverent vision of Christmas.

Paul and his friend Frank continue their melancholic and often subversive Christmas afternoon conversation.

First broadcast on Radio 3 in December 1997.

Daljit Nagra selects Paul Durcan's reading of his poem Christmas Day.

Paul Durcan, Christmas Day 3-32016122520161226 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Paul Durcan's Christmas Day.

Paul continues reading from hi book-length poem that sets out a funny, sweetly sad and often irreverent vision of Christmas.

After Christmas lunch, Paul returns to his empty home, and his thoughts range across his life.

First broadcast on Radio 3 in December 1997.

Daljit Nagra selects the final part of Paul Durcan's reading of his poem 'Christmas Day'.

Peter Redgrove: Radio Poems, Obeah Oss2021081520210816 (BBC7)Poet Peter Redgrove offers a personal view of the extraordinary May Day processions through the streets of Padstow in Cornwall. The poem is illustrated with recordings of the Obby Oss made at the time and rare archive sounds from the BBC vaults.

Producer - Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Philip Larkin2022080720220808 (BBC7)To mark 100 years since the birth of one of the nation's favourite poets [9th August 1922], Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please - Philip Larkin.

When this programme first broadcast, Hull was named as 2017's European Capital of Culture. Roger McGough is joined by poets Sean O'Brien, Douglas Dunn and Paul Farley to celebrate the city's most famous librarian, Philip Larkin.

Producer Sally Heaven.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Pick A Sky And Name It2021071120210712 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Pick a Sky and Name It featuring successful millennial poet Momtaza Mehri from Somalia.

How did Momtaza Mehri go from net savvy 6th former to successful millennial poet?

A house belonging to her grandmother is the closest poet Momtaza Mehri has ever come to having a permanent home. Aside from summer months in London, Momtaza's family picked its way across the Middle East.

“Then I just realise, I'm having this typical Somali experience where we're literally going to the places that would be considered the bad ‘hoods. ?

Across a sea, another gulf, was the country her parents no longer called home.

Talking with her mother, Momtaza revisits the childhood experiences that shaped her outlook and her coming of age as a millennial poet.

~Poetry Extracts are taken from:

I believe in the transformative power of cocoa butter and breakfast cereal in the afternoon

Manifesto for those carrying dusk under their eyes

The Sag

Shan

Wink Wink

November 1997

“The internet just switched up the entire game, ? Momtaza says.

Producer: Tamsin Hughes

A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Piers The Plowman Revisited2022022720220228 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Piers the Plowman Revisited. It's one of the strangest, most complex and frustrating works in Middle English, so when writer Ian Sansom is tasked with coming up with a radio adaptation of William Langland's medieval dream poem 'Piers the Plowman', it presents a bit of a challenge.

His producer's solution? To lock Ian away in a Curfew Tower in the Glens of Antrim and challenge him to come up with his adaptation over the course of a weekend, after which time he'll be expected to put on a performance.

The 14th century poem - part theological allegory, part social satire - may have eluded scholars for centuries but Ian has help at hand. Aside from three poetry students from Queen's University, renowned medievalist Dr Stephen Kelly will be there to guide him on his quest for salvation.

As Ian grapples with the text written in alliterative long lines and framed in a series of dream visions, adaptation expert Brian Sibley will be just a phone call away. Then there's the members of Belfast outfit The Wireless Mystery Theatre who'll be dropping by to bring music and their own distinctive style to Ian's performance.

Who knows, it could turn out to be a dream...or it could be a nightmare.

Producer: Conor Garrett

Sound Design: Jason Martin

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poems For Idle Workers2024010720240108 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Poems for Idle Workers.

Featuring a series of small poems by Holly Pester, set in the brief pauses of work-breaks. Inspired by Virgil, absurdism, and sound poetry.

Performed by Maggie Nicols and Keeley Forsyth.

In the year 42 BC, the Latin poet Virgil began to write his famous Eclogues (the term comes from a word meaning sketch or draft), reflecting tensions in the countryside caused by civil-war in Italy and the assassination of Caesar. In these pieces, dispossessed herdsmen gossip, sing and fight alongside those who have been granted land by the new regime.

Since Virgil, poets including Percy B Shelley and WH Auden have used the eclogue form to explore more modern ideas of labour and land, touching on the real and the mythic at once.

Here, Holly Pester presents a set of experimental eclogues that take place in a contemporary work-space, where two lowly office workers find themselves united yet divided, trying to find a connection in the stolen moments of not-working.

But is there ever really such a moment?

Magatha is read and sung by Maggie Nicols.

Terry is read and sung by Keeley Forsyth.

Written and introduced by Holly Pester.

Produced by Jack Howson

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra heads back to work and selects a highlight from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Poems for Idle Workers featuring Holly Pester's poems set in the brief pauses of work-breaks. From 2019.

Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Poems for Idle Workers featuring a series of small poems by Holly Pester, set in the brief pauses of work-breaks. Inspired by Virgil, absurdism, and sound poetry.

Here, Holly Pester presents a new set of experimental eclogues that take place in a contemporary work-space, where two lowly office workers find themselves united yet divided, trying to find a connection in the stolen moments of not-working. But is there ever really such a moment?

Poems For The Spring Equinox2021040420210405 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects compilation programme: Four Seasons - Poems for the Spring Equinox - a collection celebrating the arrival of spring, longer days and new beginnings.

With poems by Robin Robertson, Stevie Smith, Louise Gluck, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charlotte Mew, Ben Jonson, AE Housman and Patrick Kavanagh.

BBC Radio 4's former poet-in-residence, Alice Oswald reads a poem written specially for the vernal equinox, Jackie Kay reads Life Mask and London's Young People's Poet Laureate and Caleb Femi reads his poem about how spring arrives in a concrete environment, Anti-Winter.

Readers include, David Calder, Clark Peters, Noma Dumezweni, Harriet Walter, Simon Russell Beale, Siobhan Redmond, Bill Patterson and Anton Lesser.

Producer: Sarah Addezio.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poems From The Pennines2017031220170313 (BBC7)
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Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Poems From The Pennines'.

Poet Simon Armitage walks the route of his 'Stanza Stones' - a series of commissioned poems carved into six stones along the Watershed of the Pennine moorland from Marsden to Ilkley in West Yorkshire. The poems take the theme of water in six different states - rain, mist, snow, puddle, dew, and beck and look at our relationship with water and our moorland. The area is close to Simon Armitage's heart as he grew up in Marsden and still lives locally.

Simon talks about the creative process of writing the poetry and the challenge of writing poems that may be read on the moors for a thousand years to come. He also reveals the history of people carving words on the rocks on the moors and looks at the nature of our relationship with water.

Producer: Laura Parfitt

Made for BBC Radio 4 by White Pebble Media and first broadcast in 2012.

Poet Simon Armitage takes us on a journey to the Stanza Stones.

Poet Of Albion2007112720160925/26 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Poet of Albion.

Jenny Uglow presents a profile of Wiliam Blake. Widely misrepresented as a patriotic conformist, the great poet was a passionate dissident, a political artist deeply at odds with his country whose ideas were formed by the turbulent history of the time.

Contributors include Blake's biographer Peter Ackroyd and poet and critic Tom Paulin.

Producers: Susan Marling and Kate Bland.

Made for BBC Radio 4 by Just Radio and first broadcast in 2007.

Daljit Nagra on the life of the radical London artist and poet, William Blake.

Poetry And Planets: Simon Armitage2018081920180820 (BBC7)
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Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Poetry and Planets' featuring Simon Armitage plus an interview from 'Start the Week' where he discusses his inspiration.

Poetry and Planets': When poet Simon Armitage invested in a powerful Russian telescope to scan the night skies above his native Huddersfield, he produced a sequence of almost 90 poems about the constellations and their modem imaginative resonances. Simon introduces and reads his favourite poems from the sequence.

Producer: Robert Ketteridge. From 1998

Start The Week': Simon Armitage talks about his collection CloudCuckooLand with Melvyn Bragg.

Producer: Olivia Seligman. From 1997.

Daljit Nagra introduces a piece by Simon Armitage and an interview from Start the Week.

Poetry And The Russian Soul2016082820160829 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Poetry and the Russian Soul.

A short but epic adventure through the heart and soul of Russia's poetry. Martin Sixsmith explores the 'strange kind of love' - often fatal - that Russia's poets have had for their homeland. And asks can you understand Russia better through its verse?

and poetry awakens in me' (Vasili Pushkin- Autumn) Poetry is uniquely linked to Russian identity and nationhood. Effectively a creation of the 18th century, it was vital in creating a natural language and form of expression as modern Russia forged a separate identity from the old world of the Slavonic church.

Pushkin was its first hero and remains the archetype of the brilliant but doomed poet whose quest for the essential truth of his nation and people carries with it fatal consequences. Russia, after all, is one of the few countries where writing poetry can amount to a death sentence.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra introduces Poetry and the Russian Soul, presented by Martin Sixsmith.

Poetry And The Russian Soul 22008080320160904/05 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Poetry and the Russian Soul.

Continuing a short but epic adventure through the heart and soul of Russia's poetry. Martin Sixsmith explores the 'strange kind of love' , often fatal, that Russia's poets have had for their homeland. And asks can you understand Russia better through its verse?

Poetry is uniquely linked to Russian identity and nationhood. Effectively a creation of the18th century, it was vital in creating a natural language and form of expression as modern Russia forged a separate identity from the old world of the Slavonic church.

But more importantly, it carried far greater weight than the poetry of the West. From the days of the Czar to the fall of Communism, Russian poetry was charged with a powerful and often fatal responsibility to convey the essential truth of the nation. Russia, after all, is one of the few countries where writing poetry can amount to a death sentence.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Set the hearts of men on fire with your word.' Poetry and the Russian Soul.

Poetry At Bath2024021120240212 (BBC7)As part of BBC Radio 4 Extra's latest All Request Weekend - following a request for poetry by Laurie Lee from 4 Extra listener, Margaret Le Couteur, Daljit Nagra introduces Poetry At Bath.

Recorded at the Theatre Royal during the Bath Festival in 1981, Poetry At Bath features readings of their own work by Laurie Lee and PJ Kavanagh.

Produced by Brian Patten

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1982.

***To nominate a programme from the archives that you would like to hear again, please email radio4extra@bbc.co.uk and tell us details of why you'd like to hear it.***

4 Extra's listeners request their favourite programmes from the BBC's archive.

Daljit Nagra presents: Poetry At Bath featuring Laurie Lee and PJ Kavanagh reading their own work. From 1982.

Poetry For The Spring Equinox2020030820200309 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Four Seasons – Spring to mark the spring equinox and the new season.

The programme features an anthology of old and new poems read by actors and poets for Radio 4's Four Seasons. Poems by Charlotte Mew, William Wordsworth, Louis MacNeice, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney and Edward Thomas are read by Juliet Stevenson, Noma Dumezweni, Ray Fearon, Simon Russell Beale, Sinead Cusack, Alex Jennings and Anton Lesser. Alice Oswald, Gillian Clarke and Patience Agbabi read their own work.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects Four Seasons - Spring - an anthology of old and new poems.

Poetry Idol2016062620160627 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Poetry Idol'.

Poetry's always had an essential role to play in Arab literature, and the tradition is thriving in unexpected ways. Shahidha Bari travels to Abu Dhabi to join the audience of 'Million's Poet', a massive televised competition to find the best poet across the Middle East.

Every year this huge contest takes place under the spotlight of the cameras in Abu Dhabi. Million's Poet is broadcast live with a huge following, as judges and viewers both have the chance to vote. There's plenty at stake, as the top prize is an eye-watering five million United Arab Emirate dirhams, a figure getting close to one million pounds.

So how did this TV contest begin and why do people tune in to hear poets reading their work? It's not the sort of show that would be likely to take off in the west. Judges, competitors and the audience all offer clues to the secret of the success of Million Poet's.

Producer: Mark Rickards

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces Poetry Idol - a contest to find the best poet in the Middle East.

Poetry In Translation2018082620180827 (BBC7)
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Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Poetry in Translation' looking at the global poetry scene.

Just how do you translate a poem? Daljit Nagra himself explores the different approaches that poets take, and there's more to it than just knowing another language.

The Magazine Modern Poetry in Translation was founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort in 1965. It's hard to believe that before this, British poetry had no real access to work beyond its borders. We hear from former editor David Constantine and his replacement Sasha Dugdale about the magazine's history and future.

Daljit speaks to poets Jo Shapcott, Pascale Petit, WN Herbert and Yang Lian, who share the pleasures and pitfalls of their methods of translation.

Producer: Jessica Treen

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra dives into the archive to look at the global poetry scene.

Poetry Of David Gascoyne2017021220170213 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and picks A Burning Sound: The Poetry of David Gascoyne.

David Gascoyne talks to Sean Street about his work and his life.

Aged 16, David Gascoyne published his first book of poems in 1932. A year later his novel appeared and in 1935 his book on Surrealism. He then moved to Paris where he was friends with Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, Max Ernst and Paul Eluard.

David became highly regarded as a translator, and wrote 'Night Thoughts', one of the great radio poems of the 1950s.

David Gascoyne died in 2001 aged 85.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995.

Daljit Nagra introduces A Burning Sound: The Poetry of David Gascoyne.

Poetry Of Gold And Angels 1-2 San Francisco2013081820180729/30 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with the first part of 'Poetry Of Gold and Angels: San Francisco'.

San Francisco is a place where a thousand stories meet - a port city where many cultures and races mix, the birthplace of counterculture and political ideologies, and now home to the high-tech revolution.

Poet, educator and weaver Kim Shuck was born in the city and has Tsalagi, Sauk and Fox and Polish ancestor's. She takes us on a tour of her San Francisco including North Beach and China Town and discusses how poets have been inspired by the city. The local poetry scene is so much more than the San Franciscan Beat poets - so here's a chance to hear some of the other poems coming out of the city.

Kim talks to poets including Devorah Major who was Poet Laureate of San Francisco and takes us to Marcus Books, the oldest Black book shop in America. And Jack Hirschman, part of the Beat generation and social activist, explains how music and jazz have influenced the city's poetic voice.

Other guests include poets Genny Lim, David Brazil, Micah Ballard and David Buuck.

Producer: Laura Parfitt

A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Introduced by poet Daljit Nagra, San Franciscan Kim Shuck presents the poetry of her city.

Poetry Of Gold And Angels 2-2 Los Angeles2013082520180805/06 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with second part of 'Poetry Of Gold and Angels: Los Angeles.

Los Angeles poet and lyricist Stephen J. Kalinich looks to find the real poetic voice of the city - a voice he believes is to be found in the poetry of the streets.

Stephen worked with the Beach Boys as a lyricist in the '60s and also recorded a poetry album with Brian Wilson, 'A World of Peace Must Come' inspired by Vietnam. Indeed peace has been his major theme as a writer. He recited poetry at a concert of 'Sugarman' Sixto Rodrigez. As well as reciting some of his own work, Stephen is on a quest to discover the true poetry of LA.

On his journey round the city, he encounters poets such as SA Griffin, from the poetry group Carma Bums who talks about his work also to promote peace with his tour of a 'poetry bomb' - a real bomb filled with poems. He also talks about the harshness of living in a town dominated by the movie industry and a desire to be famous from his experience of working as an actor.

And acclaimed song writer PF Sloan talks about his music and difference between writing lyrics and poetry. He also explains how living in LA can sometimes seem like being at a party, being really hungry and the fruit in the fruit bowl is plastic.

And meet Gingee, a poet and DJ from the Filipino community who talks about the issues she has encountered and why she needs to represent her community in her work.

Producer: Laura Parfitt

A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Introduced by poet Daljit Nagra, Stephen Kalinich takes us on a poetic tour of Los Angeles

Poetry Of History, Di Great Insohreckshan2007120220151115/16 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Poetry of History' written in the aftermath of great historic events, Jonathan Bate brings us close to our own times and the Brixton riots of 1981. He talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson whose poem Di Great Insohreckshan now stands alongside TV and radio archive as a primary source, helping future generations understand the cultural and political upheaval that spilt onto the streets of south London in April 1981.

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Linton Kwesi Johnson's poem explains Brixton's cultural and political upheaval of 1981.

Poetry Of History: The Battle Of Maldon2015101120151012 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's and 4 Extra's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

The Poetry of History looks at historical events through the poems they inspired.

Jonathan Bate begins on the Essex Coast where the valiant failure of the Anglo-Saxon leader Byrhtnoth against a Viking landing in 991 is remembered best in one of the classics of the Old English cannon, The Battle of Maldon.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

A look at historical events through the poems they inspired. Jonathan Bate starts in Essex

Poetry Of The Forgotten People2017112620171127 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Poetry of the Forgotten People' featuring Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Greta Scacchi pays a personal tribute to this extraordinary poet - formerly known as Kath Walker - who, when the aeroplane she was travelling on was taken hostage, used poetry to appeal to the hostage takers.

A pioneer of Aboriginal poetry, she was the first Indigenous Australian woman to have her work published, which was a milestone in Australian history.

She was also a trailblazing Aboriginal Rights campaigner and environmental activist, who paved the way for contemporary Aboriginal artists and political campaigners.

Joining Greta are close friends and family, who share their memories and discuss her impact not only on their lives but on millions of Australians too.

Oodgeroo's poems are read by Aboriginal actress, Roxanne McDonald.

Produced by Charlotte Austin and Diana Bentley

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2010.

Daljit Nagra introduces 'Poetry of the Forgotten People' featuring Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Poetry Please , Alice Oswald2023030520230306 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.
Poetry Please, Bloomsday2022061220220613 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and 100 years since the publication of Ulysses he selects Poetry Please: Bloomsday with poetry by James Joyce and Paul Durcan. Presented by Roger McGough.

The programme also features the usual varied selection of listeners' requests for poets including Kenneth Slessor, Julia Darling and Fannie Stearns-Gifford. Producer Sally Heaven.

Produced by Sally Heaven.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Festive Requests2022121120221212 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please - Festive requests with Roger McGough hosting a varied, warm, yet slush-free selection of Christmas poetry requests.

A moving poem called The Shepherd by Edward Kaulfuss will strike a chord with anyone who has felt estranged at a Christmas gathering.

T.S. Eliot's 'The Journey of The Magi' with its complexities and doubt features alongside other classics like Hardy's ever hopeful poem The Oxen (it wouldn't be Christmas without it, after all) and Laurie Lee's Christmas Landscape. Another thoughtful nativity poem comes from a poet perhaps better known for her caustic wit; Dorothy Parker.

There are some nostalgic poems from Ireland, including Patrick Kavanagh's poem 'A Christmas Childhood' where the six year old Kavanagh saw the magic in the mundane ('my child poet picked out the letters/On the grey stone/In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland') as his father's melodeon called out to his neighbours.

John Montague's poem The Silver Flask marks the brief reunion of a family dispersed from County Tyrone to Brooklyn, where Montague himself was born.

Coventry Patmore's poem The Toys might just move the hardest cynic heart to tears, whilst Hugh MacMillan's 'Saturday Afternoon at the Grotto' injects a healthy sense of Glaswegian realism.

The readers are John Mackay, Ian McElhinney and Eleanor Tremain.

Producer: Sarah Langan

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects the best seasonal programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, George Mackay Brown2021101720211018 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please with a programme celebrating 100 years since the birth of George Mackay Brown.

Roger McGough presents a programme dedicated to the Orkney poet and prose writer George Mackay Brown. He wrote poems full of wonderful imagery, capturing the life and characters of those islands. Reader John Mackay.

Producer Sally Heaven.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Hollie Mcnish2022091120220925/26 (BBC7)The poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please - Holly McNish:

Performance poet Holly joins Roger McGough to pick her favourite poems:

Poems chosen:-

Digging by Seamus Heaney read by Seamus Heaney

Reading to You By Hollie McNish

Grafters by Norah Hanson

From Sparks Read by Hollie McNish

April Sunshine by Jackie Kay read by Jackie Kay

An Abortion By Liz Lochhead read by Hollie McNish

School Gates by Sabrina Mahfouz read by Hollie McNish

Birds and Trains by Michael Pedersen read by Hollie McNish

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen read by Corporal Barbara Ennis

Slough by John Betjeman read by Tim McMullan

Producer Sally Heaven.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Each week Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Liz Berry2022032720220328 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please.

Liz Berry joins Roger McGough to present a selection of her favourite poems from listener requests. Choices include, Dylan Thomas, Charlotte Mew, Kathleen Jamie, James Wright, Thomas Hardy, Sharon Olds, Wendy Pratt and Jackie Kay.

Producer: Sarah Addezio.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects inspiring programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Midwinter2023121020231211 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects 'Poetry Please - Midwinter'.

Roger McGough explores the archives to find the most evocative winter poems by Thomas Hardy, Miroslav Holub, Robert Frost and Shakespeare.

Read by some of our best actors including:

Juliet Stevenson,

Dame Harriet Walter

Hugh Laurie.

With Steeleye Span and Bert Jansch.

Producer: Sally Heaven

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives.

Daljit Nagra selects 'Poetry Please - Midwinter' with poems by Thomas Hardy, Miroslav Holub and Robert Frost. From 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please - Midwinter with poems by Thomas Hardy, Miroslav Holub, Robert Frost and Shakespeare.

Roger McGough explores the archives to find the most evocative winter poems read by some of our best actors including Juliet Stevenson, Dame Harriet Walter and Hugh Laurie. With Steeleye Span and Bert Jansch.

Produced by Sally Heaven

Daljit Nagra selects Poetry Please - Midwinter with poems by Thomas Hardy, Miroslav Holub and Robert Frost. From 2016.

Poetry Please, Poems For Dark Days2022012320220124 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Poetry Please - Poems for Dark Days presented by Roger McGough.

Poems to get you through the saggy bit of the year between Christmas and spring, to sustain us during the dark days of late winter, and to bring comfort and cheer (whether our dark days be actual, personal or political).

Listener requests for poems by Raymond Carver, Kathleen Jamie, WH Auden, Emily Dickinson and many more are read by Siobhan Redmond and Peter Marinker.

Producer: Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Poets Laureate2014091420221127/28 (BBC7)
It's 50 years since John Betjeman was appointed Poet Laureate.

To mark the occasion Daljit Nagra chooses 'Poetry Please: Poets Laureate' with Roger McGough and a selection of works by Poets Laureate past and present.

These include Wordsworth, Tennyson, Betjeman, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy.

There's also a Cecil Day Lewis poem read by his son Daniel Day-Lewis, recorded as part of the exhibition 'Poetry for the Palace: Poets Laureate from Dryden to Duffy' at The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Readers: Anton Lesser and Alice Arnold.

Producer: Sally Heaven

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2014.

Daljit Nagra chooses memorable programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Shakespeare's Sonnets20230423Daljit Nagra selects Poetry Please: Shakespeare's Sonnets presented by Roger McGough with new and archive recordings.

Poet Daljit Nagra heard his first Sonnet whilst watching a Carry On film. Living in a house with no books, he was blown away by the language which he had never heard before. This programme explores some of the best known ones written by Shakespeare.

Roger McGough with a selection of Shakespeare's passionate, jealous and lustful sonnets read in new and archive recordings by some favourite Poetry Please actors.

Produced by Sally Heaven.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects a programme from the BBC's poetry archive for St George's Day.

Poetry Please, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner2022101620221017 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Trevor Peacock reads Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic story of a nightmare voyage as told by the Ancient Mariner, whose killing of an albatross, a bird of good omen, brings misfortune on the ship and all its crew.

Presented by Roger McGough.

Producer: Paul Dodgson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please, Winter, Star-gazing And Time2022010220220103 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please: Winter, Star-gazing and Time. Presented by Roger McGough and read by Pippa Haywood, Peter Marinker, Mark Meadows and Nadia Williams.

There are well-known works by Sheenagh Pugh and Alfred Tennyson contemplating the new year. Roger marks Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday with a poem by Robert Frost about the importance of telescopes.

Winter looms large, with poems by Longfellow, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Dana Gioia, but in contrast there are rays of sunshine from John Lyons.

Producer: Toby Field

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Please: Altered States2015112920151130 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'Poetry Please', Roger McGough presents poetry to take you into altered states, reveries and waking dreams - including Tennyson's strange and magical Lotus-Eaters and Coleridge's Kubla Khan.

The readers are Tim Pigott-Smith and Indira Varma.

Producer: Beth O'Dea

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra introduces an edition featuring poetry to take you into altered states.

Poetry Please: Goblin Market2015112220151123 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'Poetry Please' Roger McGough features the poems of Christina Rossetti. Shirley Henderson gives a beguiling rendition of what is arguably Rossetti's most famous poem 'Goblin Market', published in 1862. It's a heady fairy tale about temptation involving two sisters, Laura and Lizzie. The poem has a sexual undertone and a menacing quality that lurks among the persistent pleas of the fruit selling Goblin men to 'come buy, come buy.' Visits to your greengrocer may never be the same again.

There is also a reading of another of Rossetti's much requested and moving poems 'Remember,' as well as a lesser known poem of pilgrimage, 'Up-hill'.

Producer: Sarah Langan

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014 .

An edition featuring works by Christina Rossetti, including Goblin Market.

Poetry Please: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol2015120620151207 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'Poetry Please', Roger McGough introduces Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, read by Alex Jennings.

In May 1897 Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Gaol. That month he began to write The Ballad of Reading Gaol - to express his horror and outrage at what he had witnessed during his years in prison. The poem memorialises a fellow prisoner, who was hanged for murder in 1896.

Wilde wrote it in exile in Dieppe, then Naples. He finished it in October that same year, and it was published the following year, 1898. The author's name was given simply as C. 3. 3., Wilde's number in Reading Gaol, his cell being the third on the third floor of Block C.

Producer Beth O'Dea

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra introduces an edition featuring Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Poetry Please: The Eve Of St Agnes2015121320151214 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'Poetry Please', Roger McGough introduces Keats's erotic and magical poem The Eve of St Agnes read by actress Lindsay Duncan.

January 20th is the Eve of St Agnes.

Producer Beth O'Dea

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces Lindsay Duncan reading Keats's erotic and magical poem.

Poetry Please: Ts Eliot, The Waste Land2022103020221031 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Please: TS Eliot - The Waste Land featuring the groundbreaking modernist poem.

Roger McGough introduces requests for TS Eliot's groundbreaking modernist poem The Waste Land. First published in 1922, the programme draws upon existing recordings of the work by Eliot himself and Ted Hughes, with a recording read by Lia Williams. The effect is to semi-dramatise this extremely influential work which extended the range of the dramatic monologue. Known for its almost deliberate obscurity in places, what the listener hears in this version is instead a clear, intriguing interpretation of the poem, intercutting between the different voices.

Producer: Mark Smalley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects wonderful programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Postcards2019060920190610 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Poetry Postcards.

In 2014 Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games. For this programme a poet from each participating nation and territory were invited to send a poem to Glasgow for the Games.

Razia Iqbal discusses the common themes arising from the collection with four of the participating poets: Sasenarine Persaud from Guyana; Nigerian journalist and poet Tolu Ogunlesi; Toni Stuart, a performance poet from South Africa; and Trinidadian Vahni Capildeo.

Produced by Liza Greig.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Razia Iqbal shares poetry from around the Commonwealth. From 2014.

Poetry Proms: Andrew Motion And Ua Fanthorpe2000071920170507/08 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with two choices: 'Poetry Proms' with Andrew Motion from 2000 and Tribute to UA Fanthorpe on 'Last Word' from 2009.

At a live event Jo Shapcott introduces poets Andrew Motion and UA Fanthorpe who read selections from their work.

In Last Word, Matthew Bannister and Elizabeth Sandy provide a fitting tribute to UA Fanthorpe following her death in 2009.

Producers: Kate Rowland and Neil George.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Daljit Nagra selects Poetry Proms with Andrew Motion and UA Fanthorpe and Last Word.

Poetry Societies, The British Haiku Society2023012920230130 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Societies - The British Haiku Society.

Judith Palmer visits the British Haiku Society in Preston to explore an ancient Japanese verse form.

Guests include - Martin Lucas former President of the British Haiku Society.

Producer: Viv Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2003.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Societies, The Friends Of The Dymock Poets2022111320221114 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Societies - The Friends of the Dymock Poets with Judith Palmer.

Judith Palmer meets a group of enthusiasts from Gloucestershire to discuss the work of the small group of poets who gathered there just before the First World War. They reveal a legacy not only in cherished poetry, but also in the walks and wildlife of the area.

Produced by Christine Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Societies, The Gujarati Writers Forum2019080420190805 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Poetry Societies – The Gujarati Writers Forum.

In this series Judith Palmer joins enthusiasts who meet up and down the country to celebrate their love of poetry.

The Gujarati poets love to celebrate their literary heritage but want to make it relevant for the younger generation. In this episode Judith Palmer goes to Batley in West Yorkshire to join in a lively meeting and hear about their latest translation project.

Producer Viv Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 2006.

From the BBC archive Daljit Nagra selects Poetry Societies - The Gujarati Writers Forum.

Poetry Societies, The John Harris Society20230625Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Societies: The John Harris Society.

Judith Palmer meets enthusiasts in Cornwall, the poet's birth place.

The poetry of a Cornish minor is brought to light by a small but dedicated group of admirers including a mainstream poet.

Producer: Sara Davies.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Societies, The Rumi Society2022031320220314 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra chooses Poetry Societies - The Rumi Society - featuring the mystic poet. Presented by Judith Palmer.

Sufism is a mystical branch of the Muslim religion which, 800 years ago, produced one of its greatest poets - Rumi, the founder of the whirling dervishes.

Judith Palmer reports from a meeting of the Rumi Society held in Paddington Library - the unlikely setting for an evening of transcendental music, dance and poetry, featuring Vida Kashizadeh.

Presenter - Judith Palmer

Producer - Peter Everett

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.

Daljit Nagra selects interesting listening from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Societies, The Yeats Society Of Sligo2019012720190128 (BBC7)80 years since the death of WB Yeats (28 January 1939), Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Poetry Societies – The Yeats Society of Sligo about the Nobel winning poet and his home. From 2006.

Presenter Judith Palmer spends a day on the West Coast of Ireland with the Yeats Society as they celebrate the poet's birthday [13th June 1865 ].

Produced by Viv Beeby.

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2006.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Poetry Societies - The Yeats Society of Sligo.

Poetry Societies, Thomas Lovell Beddoes2020060720200608 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Poetry Societies - Thomas Lovell Beddoes Society.

As part of a series looking at groups up and down the country that meet to celebrate their love of poetry, Judith Palmer spends an evening with the Beddoes Society at the Dead Poets Pub in Belper, Derbyshire, where the poet's family, together with their friends, gather to raise a glass to their brilliant but flawed ancestor.

Producer Viv Beeby.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Workshop, Essay On Snow, By Sean O'brien2023010820230109 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Poetry Workshop: Essay on Snow by Sean O'Brien.

Ruth Padel's landmark series explores the pleasures of writing and reading poems. This episode comes from Newcastle, where Ruth leads a workshop for group of poets working on their own poems on the theme of The City.

Poetry and poetry fans are everywhere - on the underground, buses and the internet; in schools, colleges and universities; on the stage at slams and festivals; in pubs, theatres and concert halls; in reading groups and writing workshops. All over the country groups of aspiring poets meet regularly to work together on their craft, and in this series Ruth taps into the energy of these poetry workshops to explore how poems work for both writers and readers. In Newcastle, she joins seven poets at the beginning of their writing careers, who have all won recent awards for their poetry, to work on some of their poems on the theme of The City.

Ruth and the group listen to the poems and offer practical and inspirational pointers to each other. As they go behind the scenes of the poems, testing and pruning, exploring technical points like structure, rhyme and line endings, they reveal the imagination and the skill that makes poetry so rewarding for both writers and readers of poetry.

The group also share and appreciate a poem by the award winning poet Sean O'Brien called Essay on Snow.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2012.

Daljit Nagra finds interesting programmes in the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Workshop, Night Photograph, By Lavinia Greenlaw20230730Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Workshop - Night Photograph by Lavinia Greenlaw.

Ruth Padel meets poets from East Suffolk to work on some poems in progress. Testing and revising as they go, in a spirit of supportive criticism. Tough love for poems.

Poetry Workshops are gathering all over the country. In the back rooms of pubs, in libraries and in front rooms, poets meet to hone their craft and sharpen their verse.

Ruth and the group work on three very different poems on the theme of 'darkness' - poems that evoke mystery, longing and sadness. In the process they consider the pros and cons of abstractions and the effective use of titles in a poem. The group are ruthless yet supportive as they chuck out words and redraft; listening, pruning and testing their work as they go.

The group discuss the techniques, inspiration, wordplay and imagination that make poetry so enjoyable and rewarding. As well as working on their own poems, the group consider a poem by Lavinia Greenlaw called 'Night Photograph.

Producer: Sarah Langan

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

Poetry Workshop, The Edinburgh School Of Poets2022022020220221 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Poetry Workshop with Ruth Padel exploring the pleasures of writing and reading poems.

Poetry is everywhere, and all over the country workshops of aspiring poets meet to work together on their craft. The Edinburgh School of Poets is one such group, and Ruth joins them to work on three of their poems on the theme of 'Family Ties'.

Ruth and the group listen to the poems and offer practical and inspirational pointers to each other. As they go behind the scenes of the poems, testing and pruning, exploring technical things like structure, rhyme and line endings, they reveal the imagination and the skill that makes poetry so rewarding for both writers and readers of poetry.

The poems from the group include a tender one about the never ending anxieties of motherhood, which includes some interesting Scottish words like 'stravaiging'. There's also a funny piece about the pre-occupation with genealogy, and a moving poem about an attempt to piece together a picture of a lost family member from their remaining personal effects.

The group also share and appreciate a poem by the award winning poet Don Paterson, called The Thread.

Producers: Sarah Langan and Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Poetry Workshop, William Carlos Williams2022041720220418 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive and this week selects Poetry Workshop: The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.

Ruth Padel and the The Dove Cottage Poets in Grasmere work on some poems in progress. Tough love for poems.

Poetry Workshops are gathering all over the country. In the back rooms of pubs, in libraries and in front rooms, poets meet to hone their craft and sharpen their verse.

Going behind the scenes of the poems, the group are ruthless yet supportive as they chuck out words and redraft; listening, pruning and testing their work as they go. The theme for this week's poems is fathers, apt of course for the home-place of Wordsworth, the father of English romanticism.

The group discuss the techniques, inspiration, wordplay and imagination that make poetry so enjoyable and rewarding. As well as working on their own poems, the group bravely try out a writing exercise to warm up their poetry muscles, focussing on line endings by experimenting with a very famous poem by William Carlos Williams. They also consider a poem by a much loved poet associated with the area; Norman Nicholson.

Producer: Sarah Langan

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Postcards From The Village: An East-west Dialogue2015120620180513/14 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Postcards From the Villages: An East-West Dialogue.

An exchange of two villages at the margins of Europe - one in Transylvania, one in Oxfordshire - inspires new poems from Romanian poet Ioana Ieronim and UK poet Fiona Sampson.

Both have written extensively about their own villages - Rasnov and Coleshill - so what happens when they visit each other's 'great good place'? Ioana and Fiona find some curious parallels between two villages that on first encounter seem very different.

Producer: Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Postcards From the Villages: An East-West Dialogue.

Pound On Pounds2022061920220620 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Pound on Pounds as Ira Lightman looks into the economic theories of the maverick American poet Ezra Pound, and finds them surprisingly topical.

The American poet Ezra Pound devoted much of his compendious poetic work, The Cantos, to discussion of his firmly-held beliefs about economics and the distribution of wealth. Difficult if not impossible for a casual reader to follow today, the Cantos draw heavily on American and Chinese history, and the writings of various now-obscure economists, in support of Pound's quest for an ideal society.

The modern British poet Ira Lightman has been an admirer of Pound's Cantos for many years, and realised after the financial crash of 2008 that Pound may have some surprising lessons for us about how banks operate and how monetary systems are organised. Pound is unfortunately now remembered for a series of wartime broadcasts in sympathy with Fascism, which saw him locked up in a mental institution after the Second World War. Yet the Cantos are all about social justice, about fair distribution, and about the evils of a system which extracts interest at an extortionate rate - which Pound personified as the abstract arch-villain 'Usura'.

Pound's beliefs were shaped by the aftermath of the First World War, the inequities of the post-war reparations, the straitjacket of the Gold Standard in the 1920s, and the Great Depression. In our own time, poetry is perhaps not the genre to which readers most immediately turn for a dissection of these issues - and yet many poets are passionately involved in the debate. Is it still a poet's role to provide economic advice in the 21st century, as Pound sought to in the 20th?

In his personal exploration of Pound's modern resonances, Ira also seeks the expertise of biographer A. David Moody, poet Judi Sutherland, and Harvard economist Barry Eichengreen. Drawing upon what he discovers, he tackles the challenge of creating a brand new Canto, responding to our own economic circumstances.

Produced by Paul Bajoria.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Provincial Pleasures, Norman Nicholson2014010520171022/23 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Provincial Pleasures' - a profile of Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson.

Born in January 1914, Norman Nicholson lived all bar two of his 73 years in the same small industrial town - most of them in the same house.

Millom (Cumbrian dialect for 'At the mills') is not the Lake District of Hawkshead or Windermere. It's a place where industry failed and unemployment was disproportionately high. Yet it was here, in isolation from the literary world, that Norman Nicholson became a world-class poet. He wrote about quarrying and iron works, slag banks and granite. He was one of the first to argue that industrial heritage should be valued on a par with our cultural heritage.

Championed in his early life by TS Elliot, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, Nicholson chose to focus his energies on a non-literary audience, spending his evenings lecturing at the Workers Educational Association. During the 1970s, his poem Windscale about a nuclear accident became an environmentalist's anthem.

Eric Robson visits Millom, the town Norman Nicholson dedicated his life to. What do the locals think of the poet who did more than anyone else to reflect the soul of this Cumbrian village? When poets are often restless people, what motivated Nicholson to live his entire life in an apparently depressed provincial town?

Contributors include Melvyn Bragg (chairman of the Norman Nicholson Society), poet Paul Kingsnorth, academic David Cooper (Manchester Metropolitan University) and author Kathleen Jones.

Producer: Joby Waldman

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces the Cumbrian writer Norman Nicholson in Provincial Pleasures.

Pursuit Of Beauty, Dancing The Poem2022071020220711 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Pursuit of Beauty - Dancing the Poem in which two choreographers reimagine poems old and new.

Two choreographers talk about how they were inspired to create a dance based closely on a poem.

Ben Duke, nominated for an Olivier Award, grew to love Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost while at university and set about creating his one-man show in contemporary dance called Paradise Lost - lies unopened beside me.

Julie Cunningham, a dancer/choreographer who now runs her own company, went to the Glastonbury Festival, saw the poet Kate Tempest perform, and immediately wanted to set some of her poems to dance.

Ben Duke springs off Paradise Lost and, in a mix of dance and conversation, with just a little of the text, leads his audience through God's creation of the universe, to the battle with Lucifer, and the final expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Dance critic Judith Mackrell and poet and dance producer Karthika Nair describe Ben's approach as a kind of riff on the poem, moving between his own domestic challenges and the challenges faced by God as they both struggle to complete their act of creation.

Julie Cunningham's piece is based on a selection of poems from Kate Tempest's prizewinning collection Hold Your Own, through which runs the story of Tiresias - boy, then woman, then prophet, blinded by the gods for his knowledge of both genders. Set for four dancers, she sees her work called To Be Me as a search for the individual person, with the Tiresias story as the background. Judith Mackrell feels that the passion and strength of Kate Tempest's poetry are contrasted to great effect by the beauty and power of Julie's choreography.

Photograph of Ben Duke: Alicia Clark

Producer: Richard Bannerman

A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Pursuit Of Beauty, In Emily Dickinson's Bedroom2021101020211011 (BBC7)The house where Emily Dickinson lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, is now The Emily Dickinson Museum. The museum has restored her bedroom, where she wrote most of her poetry, and they offer writing sessions for those who wish to spend an hour or two alone in Emily's Room.

In this programme three very modern writers, Cheryl Strayed, Ocean Vuong and Sharon Olds visit her room, to write, and to examine their writing through their own personal connections with Emily Dickinson's life and work.

For someone who has had such a huge impact on American poetry, Emily Dickinson lived a very small life. She published only a handful of poems in her lifetime, and as she grew older became a recluse who wore only white. Dubbed 'the myth of Amherst', her posthumous fame poses her as a puzzle to be solved. In visiting her room and meeting her on the page Cheryl, Sharon and Ocean reclaim her as a passionate, politically engaged writer whose work speaks powerfully to our present moment.

Cheryl Strayed is the author of four books and is best known for her memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, 'Wild', which was turned into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. She also wrote the beloved advice column 'Dear Sugar', the best of which was collected into 'Tiny Beautiful Things'.

Ocean Vuong won the 2018 TS Eliot prize in 201 for his debut poetry collection 'Night Sky with Exit Wounds'. Born in Vietnam, Ocean has lived most of his life in Emily Dickinson's New England, and currently teaches at the University of Massachusetts, based in Amherst.

Sharon Olds is one of America's leading contemporary poets, the author of many collections of poetry and the recipient of many prizes, including the Pulitzer and the TS Eliot.

Producer: Jessica Treen

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Radio Heaney2014011220160410/11 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Radio Heaney' is a compilation of many of the poet's greatest radio moments.

In his acceptance speech as newly-anointed Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney recalled how vital a role the wireless had played in his early life growing up on a farm in Mossbawn Co. Derry. On the radio, he heard dispatches from the front line during the Second World War, was gripped by Dick Barton Special Agent and revelled in the musicality of the Shipping Forecast.

As an up and coming published poet, Heaney wrote and presented many programmes for schools in Northern Ireland, exploring and celebrating fellow writers and the local landscape. He also made for a compelling contributor and interviewee to any discussion on the purpose of poetry and was ultimately crowned with the medium's greatest accolade, an invitation to Radio 4's Desert Island.

Presented by John Toal.

Producer: Owen McFadden

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces the County Derry poet Seamus Heaney and his love for the wireless.

Rilke's Sonnets To Orpheus, Dancing The Orange2016042420160425 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus - Dancing the Orange.

Leading us through the nuances of their meaning, Karen Leeder alerts us to the beauty and power

of one of the great modernist works of literature of 1922.

After a lifetime wandering about Europe Rilke was at last able to settle when his patron, Werner Reinhart, bought the Château de Muzot in the Swiss Valais so that he could live there, and write. His aim was to complete his monumental work, 'The Duino Elegies'. But this plan was interrupted in February when, 'completely unexpected' the 'Sonnets to Orpheus' broke upon him'. Within three weeks he had completed 55 poems, of great variety, but all sonnets.

Rilke didn't like English and never visited Britain. Yet the 'Sonnets to Orpheus' have fascinated English language readers and writers ever since they appeared - with translations every decade.

With writers Martyn Crucefix and Don Paterson, plus German scholar and poet Rüdiger Görner, Karen Leeder teases out the major issues the poems address; death, love and, the creation and role of poetry - for Rilke a song of praise for life, and even death, in a creation without God, through which meaning is accomplished.

Karen visits the Château de Muzot and with Nanni Reinhart, who lives there now, to considers its impact on the composition of the poems.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Daljit Nagra introduces the story of a great modern masterpiece.

Rites Of Passage, Baby Naming Ceremony2021112120211122 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Rites of Passage - Baby Naming Ceremony.

Ian McMillan meets people who turn to poetry at key moments in their lives. He travels to Dartmoor to attend the humanist naming ceremony Lou and Steve devised for their daughter Imogen with the celebrant, Alison Orchard.

Produced by Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Rites Of Passage, Baby Remembrance2019032420190325 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Rites of Passage – Baby Remembrance.

Ian McMillan travels around the country, meeting ordinary people who turn to poetry for inspiration or solace at key moments in their lives.

McMillan speaks to the Rev Sarah Brewerton, a minister who turned to poetry as a way of expressing her grief after her baby died at 28 weeks.

Producer - Liz Leonard

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra selects Rites of Passage - Baby Remembrance. Presented by Ian McMillan.

Rites Of Passage, Changing Schools2021042520210426 (BBC7)Poet Dajlit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Rites of Passage - Changing Schools featuring poems from children leaving primary.

Ian McMillan meets people who turn to poetry for inspiration or solace at key moments in their lives. Changing Schools. McMillan visits Year 6 at Hoyland Springwood Primary School in Barnsley, Yorkshire, where he encourages the children to write a poem about going up to 'big' school.

Producer Liz Leonard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Rites Of Passage, Hindu Wedding2019111720191118 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Rites of Passage from a series in which Ian McMillan travels the length and breadth of the country, meeting people who turn to poetry for inspiration or solace at key moments in their lives.

In this episode - Hindu Wedding - McMillan travels to Bhaktivedanta Manor in Hertfordshire (made famous in the 70s when George Harrison donated it to the Hare Krishna Movement) for a Hindu wedding. He talks to the newlyweds about the place of poetry in their lives and to a Hindu priest about the poetic nature Of Sanskrit.

Producer Liz Leonard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Rites Of Passage, Retirement2023031920230320 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revists the BBC's poetry archive and selects Rites of Passage - Retirement.

Ian McMillan meets people who turn to poetry for inspiration or solace at key moments in their lives.

McMillan meets and discusses poetry with David Stewart, due to retire in 2004, and his wife Christine, as they take part in a workshop run by the Pre-Retirement Association.

Tony Chivers, from the PRA, talks about its work and the importance of preparing for this new phase in life.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Rites Of Passage, Stonehenge2004082220181021/22 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Rites of Passage' as Ian McMillan joins Druids to watch the sunrise at Stonehenge.

Ian is initiated as a Druidic bard, listens to some poems and talks to his fellow celebrants about why words matter.

Producer: Geoff Bird

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra chooses 'Rites of Passage' in which Ian McMillan joins Druids at Stonehenge.

Robert Burns And John Cooper Clarke2024012120240122 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and, in the run up to Burns Night [Jan 25th], selects The Essay: The Elephant in the Poetry Reading - featuring the poetry of Robert Burns and presented by Kathleen Jamie. And Life Drawing: John Cooper Clarke meets Martin Rowson - to celebrate the punk poet as John Cooper Clarke turns 75 [b. Jan 25 1949].

And Daljit reads from Poetry Extra's Book of the Month - Burning Season by Yvonne Reddick.

Kathleen Jamie is intrigued by Burns' ability to transform himself into whatever his audience required of him - even, in order to twist the tail of a lord, a river. She visits the Falls of Bruar to observe the trick.

Producer - Dave Batchelor

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2009.

Dr John Cooper Clarke recites punk poetry whilst posing for cartoonist Martin Rowson.

Producer - Rebecca Ripley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra finds the best programmes in the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects The Essay featuring Robert Burns from 2009 and Life Drawing with John Cooper Clarke from 2017.

Seamus Heaney, Out Of The Marvellous2023120320231204 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra marks 10 years since the death of the Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney [30th August 2013]

This edition of the BBC World Service's Meridian Books sees Heaney in conversation about his life and writing with Leon McAuley.

From his childhood with horses, buckets, milking cows and daily lit fires to California and a sense of trust and possibility.

On his return from America in 1972 Heaney and his family moved to Dublin with the promise of poetry.

With additional contributions from Brendan Kennelly Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College Dublin and Polly Devlin, Literary Editor, Vogue.

Produced by Judith Elliot and Roger Fenby

First broadcast on BBC World Service in December 1995.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Seamus Heaney - Out of the Marvellous with the Nobel Prize winner in conversation with Leon McAuley.

Daljit Nagra marks 10 years since the death of the Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney [30.8.2013] and selects an edition of the World Service's Meridian Books with Heaney in conversation discussing his life and writing with Leon McAuley.

From his childhood with horses, buckets, milking cows and daily lit fires to California and a sense of trust and possibility. On his return from America, in 1972 Heaney and his family moved to Dublin with the promise of poetry.

September 1, 193920230924It's 50 years since the death of the poet W.H Auden. This week Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses September 1, 1939.

WH Auden's September 1, 1939 was written on the eve of destruction soon after the poet's arrival in New York and the beginning of his life-long love affair with a young American poet.

It was a poem whose flaws and failings haunted Auden yet it has enjoyed a remarkable afterlife, plundered for political ads and speeches and widely circulated after 9/11 as a salve for America's wounds.

Auden's journal for that year has only recently surfaced and reveals his febrile and fertile thought processes weaving intimate private anxieties with the public crisis of a world now about to plunge into war.

The crisis of democracy and the rise of fascism, the demotic voice of radio and the secret whisper of love are twined through the poem's 99 subtle lines.

But this complex poem, despite Auden's wishes, has often been reduced to a series of epigrammatic 'greatest hits' such as 'We must love one another or die', 'ironic points of light' and 'those to whom evil is done do evil in return'.

Maria Margaronis explores all that flows into and out of a poem that speaks perpetually to our 'age of anxiety'.

Producer: Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Shark2022052220220523 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Dorothy Cross - Sharks - An ode to sharks with the Irish artist.

With fossil records dating back 400 million years, sharks have outlived most life forms on the planet. They are essential to the natural order of marine ecosystems, but so little is really known about them. Dorothy Cross is fascinated and inspired by these majestic fish. She's shared a canoe with a shark caller in the South Pacific, swum beneath Hammerheads in the Galapagos and, in this programme, she's out on a boat off Malin Head, the northern most tip of Ireland, in search of basking sharks and poetry.

Poems include Norman MacCaig's Basking Shark, Mirror by Silvia Plath, Flying Fish: An Ode by Charles Wharton Stork, Herman Melville's Maldive Shark and Behind Me Dips Eternity by Emily Dickinson. Poetry readers are Eleanor Bron, Bill Paterson and Fiona Shaw.

Produced by Kate Bland

A Cast Iron Radio production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Daljit Nagra finds the best programmes in the BBC's poetry archive.

Siegfried Sassoon, A Friend2018010720180108 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Siegfried Sassoon - A Friend

Dennis Silk recalls his 13-year friendship with the war poet and shares a precious private recording he made in the 1960s of Siegfried Sassoon reading his own work, including The General, Base Details, Died of Wounds and several other poems.

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2004.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects 'Siegfried Sassoon - A Friend' with Dennis Silk.

Sir Ian Mckellen Reads The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner2019122220191223 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - the atmospheric poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Read by Sir Ian McKellen.

A young wedding guest is detained with a 'glittering eye' and a strange tale of the supernatural events he experienced on a long sea voyage.

Specially recorded in Wordsworth's home in Grasmere.

Producer: Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day in 2006.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Sir Ralph Richardson Reads Oscar Wilde's The Ballad Of Reading Gaol2022051520220516 (BBC7)The 125th anniversary of Oscar Wilde's release from prison - May 19th 1897. To mark the occasion poet Daljit Nagra selects Sir Ralph Richardson reads Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol from the BBC's poetry archive.

The poem was written about Wilde's time in prison after his conviction in 1895 when homosexuality was a criminal offence.

First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in May 1963.

Dajlit Nagra finds a gem in the BBC's poetry archive.

Sonnets For Albert2023011520230116 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Sonnets for Albert with Anthony Joseph reflecting on fatherhood, in his own work and that of fellow artists.

The poet Anthony Joseph has been writing a new collection that addresses a key relationship in his life. His father was many things - a sharp dresser, an orator, a builder but he was only an intermittent figure in Anthony's childhood. And it is this absence which made him powerfully present in Joseph's imagination.

Anthony reveals some of his writing process and his form of 'calypso sonnet', a politically invested line length that, he says, 'enforces a melodic rhythm which reminds me of my father' and favours a decidedly Afro-Caribbean approach.

Anthony explores ideas around fatherhood, masculinity, absence and loss, as he talks to other artists whose art has become a space for interrogating the memory of their father.

We hear from fellow poet Raymond Antrobus, the singer Gregory Porter and the Trinidadian film-maker Mariel Brown.

(Including audio material from 'Unfinished Sentences', 2019 - courtesy of Mariel Brown.)

Producer: Hannah Dean

Additional production by Zakia Sewell.

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2021.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poems from the BBC's poetry archive.

Soul Music, In The Bleak Midwinter2019122920191230 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and makes a seasonal choice: Soul Music – In the Bleak Midwinter.

Originally a poem by Christina Rossetti. this carol came into being when Vaughan Williams asked Holst to set the words to music for the English Hymnal. Peggy Reynolds, Ian Bradley and Raymond Head tell the story of a Christmas favourite.

The reader is Cathryn Bradshaw.

Producer: Sara Conkey

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

South Of My Days2016091820160919 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with South of My Days.

Greta Scacchi presents a portrait of the Australian poet Judith Wright, who died in 2000, after breaking new ground in celebrating the arresting beauty of the Australian landscape - and lamenting the troubled relationship between Australia's colonial settlers and its indigenous people.

Wright's daughter, friends and colleagues discuss her life and work. Kerry Fox is the reader.

Producers: Charlotte Austin and Diana Bentley.

A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces South of My Days, featuring Australian poet Judith Wright.

Stanza On Stage, Paul Durcan2020021620200217 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Stanza on Stage with poet Paul Durcan reading at the Triskel Art Centre, Cork.

Featuring poems by Paul Durcan:

Tullynoe

The Cabinet Table

Sister Agnes Writes to her Beloved Mother

Michael Mac Liammoir

The Centre of the Universe

Nessa

A Snail in My Prime

Produced by Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 1993.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Stopping, By Woods2020122720201228 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects ‘Stopping By Woods' by Robert Frost.

The poem 'Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening' was written about nightfall on the shortest day of the year, though it was actually put to paper at dawn on June 21st, 1922 - the longest day. This has always puzzled Kenneth Steven, a poet captivated by Robert Frost's seemingly effortless mastery of rhyme, metre, language and imagery.

Kenneth Steven visits the poet's home in Shaftesbury, Vermont, now a museum. He talks to the curator there, Carole Thompson, and a pair of Frost scholars, Lea Newman and David Sanders, and he walks the very woods that are possibly evoked by the horseman who pauses to watch the snow settle, despite having 'promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep'.

He makes a pilgrimage to Frost's final resting place in a New England cemetery - his gravestone covered in glinting pennies left by fellow pilgrims - and he reveals compelling new insights into the origins and impact of the poem which Frost himself considered his 'best bid for remembrance'.

Producer: Alan Hall

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2011.

Kenneth Steven explores Robert Frost's iconic poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Stories In Verse, The Arthurian Legend2023123120240101 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra signs off 2023 with a special treat.

He's uncovered a recording of Dame Judi Dench reading two of Alfred Lord Tennyson's most well-known poems

Stories in Verse - The Arthurian Legend'. features:

The Lady of Shalott

Morte d'Arthur

Tennyson was fascinated by the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table - charismatic figures who galloped around the country challenging the King's enemies and helping ladies in distress. Arthur probably lived in the 5th/6th century, but little else is known for certain.

Tennyson published the Lady of Shalott in 1832 - when he was just 23 years old.

He spent many years studying the stories and eventually retold them in a collection of long poems - The Idylls of the King. The first edition proved a block-buster selling 10,000 copies in 6 weeks!

The collection incorporated an account of the death of Arthur which Tennyson had written years before following the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam.

King Arthur returns from a war in France to face a rebellion by his nephew. A bitter battle takes place and Tennyson takes up the story in Morte d'Arthur.

Dame Judi Dench is one of Britain's most eminent actors.

Her Oscar winning career began with a stage debut of Hamlet in 1957 and has gone on to include film and television - M in the Bond films and starring with Geoffrey Palmer in As Time Goes By. In 1988 Judi Dench became a Dame and in 1998 won an Academy Award for her role in Shakespeare in Love. Most recently she has appeared in the films Belfast (as Kenneth Branagh's grandmother) and Spirited Away.

Presenter: Joy Boatman

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in March 1994.

Daljit Nagra selects a poetry programme from the BBC's archives with Dame Judi Dench.

Daljit Nagra selects Stories in Verse - The Arthurian Legend with Judi Dench reading poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Daljit Nagra signs off 2023 by uncovering a recording featuring Dame Judi Dench reading poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Stories in Verse - The Arthurian Legend.

Judi Dench reads two of Tennyson's most well known poems - “The Lady of Shalott ? and “Morte d'Arthur ?.

Tennyson was fascinated by the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table - charismatic figures who galloped around the country challenging the King's enemies and helping ladies in distress. Arthur probably lived in the 5th/6th century, but little else is known for certain. Tennyson published the Lady of Shalott in 1832 - when he was just 23 years old.

Alfred spent many years studying the stories and eventually retold them in a collection of long poems - The Idylls of the King. The first edition proved a block buster selling 10,000 copies in 6 weeks!

Dame Judi Dench is one of Britain's most eminent actors. Her Oscar winning career began with a stage debut of Hamlet in 1957 and has gone on to include film and television - M in the Bond films and starring with Geoffrey Palmer in As Time Goes By. In 1988 Judi Dench became a Dame and in 1998 won an Academy Award for her role in Shakespeare in Love. Most recently she has appeared in the films Belfast (as Kenneth Branagh's grandmother) and Spirited Away.

Presenter – Joy Boatman

First broadcast on BBC World Service in March 1994.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archives.

Street Reach Girls2017031920170320 (BBC7)
/7) (BBC7)
Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Street Reach Girls'.

At a drop-in centre in Yorkshire prostitutes get more than just condoms, health advice, showers and tea: they get Barnsley poet Ian McMillan to help them write poems about their life.

A documentary with verse that tells their story, written by Ian and the Street Reach Girls.

Produced in Bristol by Mark Jobst.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Daljit Nagra chooses 'Street Reach Girls', presented by Barnsley poet Ian MacMillan.

Suckers! Poet And Parasite2022011620220117 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Suckers! Poet and Parasite, as poet Paul Farley explores the itchy relationship between poets and blood-sucking parasites.

Parasites are not an obvious subject matter for poetry, but in fact there are a surprising number of poems about these miniature blood-suckers. From Donne's 'The Flea', to Rimbaud's 'Lice Hunters' and D.H. Lawrence's 'Mosquito', it seems that a number of prominent poets have been fascinated by the notion of blood-sucking and by the uncomfortable relationship between man and parasite.

Paul Farley considers this long relationship between poets and parasites as he looks for leeches in the pools of Dungeness, visits the mosquito colonies cultivated under Gower Street in London and marvels at the strange beauty of the flea specimens in the Rothschild Collection of Fleas at the Natural History Museum.

In the company of entomologists and of fellow poets, Susan Wicks, Antony Dunn and Sarah Howe, Paul examines both classic and contemporary poems to discover how parasites have been portrayed - and transformed - in verse.

Produced by Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Surtsey And Me2017070220170703 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Surtsey and Me' about the emergence of a new island.

Out of the icy seas off the south-west coast of Iceland in November 1963, a massive volcanic eruption gave birth to the island of Surtsey. The same year in West Yorkshire, the poet Simon Armitage was born. They had never met until 2004. More than five decades later, island and poet get together to compare how it's going.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Daljit Nagra introduces 'Surtsey and Me', about a new island near Iceland.

Sylvia Plath And Paul Muldoon2024031720240318 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and continues with a special collection of programmes across the month featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. With a reading from Daljit's Poetry Extra Book of the Month: Egg /Shell by Victoria Kennefick. And, an archive reading from Paul Muldoon to mark St Patrick's Day.

This week Daljit chooses The Living Poet - Sylvia Plath featuring the poet as she introduces a selection of her own poems read by herself and Marvin Kane.

Produced by Anthony Thwaite

First broadcast on the Third Programme in 1961.

Three Score and Ten - Paul Muldoon

Featuring the poet reading his poem 'Loaf' - from the series Work in Progress, 2001

Produced by Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra continues with a choice of programmes featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Daljit Nagra chooses The Living Poet - Sylvia Plath featuring the poet introducing and reading her own poems. From 1961.

Tagore At 1502011071720160612/13 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tagore at 150'.

Poets, singers and ecological activists share their favourite verse at the Tagore Festival at Dartington Hall in Devon marking the 150th anniversary of the poet's birth in 2011.

Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel prize for literature in 1913 for his collection Geetanjali ('The Song Offerings'). He wrote more than 1,000 poems and 2000 songs and his work has been translated into all the major languages of the world.

UNESCO declared 2011 as the Year of Tagore with events throughout the world celebrating his life and work.

Devon's Dartington Hall is a centre for poetry, music, arts and crafts that was founded at the suggestion of Tagore himself.

We hear from poets such as William Radice, Ketaki Kushari Dyson and former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, singers Debashish and Rohini Raychaudhuri, environmentalist Jonathon Porritt and internationalists such as Clare Short and Satish Kumar, Artistic Director of the Festival who is a devotee of Tagore's ecological teachings as well as his poetry.

Producer: Mukti Jain Campion

A Culture Wise production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Daljit Nagra on an event marking the anniversary of the poet's birth at Dartington Hall.

Tales From Ovid, Arethusa, Salamacis And Hermaphroditus, Actaeon;tiresias1998042420160731 (BBC7)
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tales of Ovid'.

Poet Ted Hughes continues reading from his award-winning reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of the teeming underworld and overworld of Romanised Greek myth and legend.

Featuring 'Arethusa','Salamacis and Hermaphroditus', 'Actaeon' and 'Tiresias', this highly praised collection won the 1997 Whitbread prize for poetry and WH Smith Literary Award.

Ted Hughes: born: 1930 and died: 1998.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast in two-parts on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces stories including Tiresias retold from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Tales From Ovid: Arachne, Midas2016071020160711 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tales of Ovid'.

Poet Ted Hughes continues reading from his award-winning reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of the teeming underworld and overworld of Romanised Greek myth and legend.

Featuring 'Arachne' and 'Midas', this highly praised collection won the 1997 Whitbread prize for poetry and WH Smith Literary Award.

Ted Hughes: born: 1930 and died: 1998.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast in two-parts on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces Arachne and Midas, stories retold from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Tales From Ovid: Echo And Narcissus And Callisto And Arcas1998042220160703/04 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tales of Ovid'.

Poet Ted Hughes begins reading from his award-winning reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of the teeming underworld and overworld of Romanised Greek myth and legend.

Starting with 'Echo and Narcissus' and 'Callisto and Arcas', this highly praised collection won the 1997 Whitbread prize for poetry and WH Smith Literary Award.

Ted Hughes: born: 1930 and died: 1998.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast in two-parts on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces a prize-winning retelling of tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Tales From Ovid: Pyramus And Thisbe, Erysichthon1998050220160724/25 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tales of Ovid'.

Poet Ted Hughes continues reading from his award-winning reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of the teeming underworld and overworld of Romanised Greek myth and legend.

Featuring 'Pyramus' and 'Thisbe; Erysichthon', this highly praised collection won the 1997 Whitbread prize for poetry and WH Smith Literary Award.

Ted Hughes: born: 1930 and died: 1998.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast in two-parts on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses, including' Pyramus and Thisbe'.

Tales From Ovid: Semele, Peleus And Thetis, Pygmalion, The Birth Of Hercules1998042520160717/18 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tales of Ovid'.

Poet Ted Hughes continues reading from his award-winning reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of the teeming underworld and overworld of Romanised Greek myth and legend.

Featuring 'Semele', 'Peleus and Thetis' and 'Pygmalion and the Birth of Hercules', this highly praised collection won the 1997 Whitbread prize for poetry and WH Smith Literary Award.

Ted Hughes: born: 1930 and died: 1998.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast in two-parts on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra introduces stories retold from Ovid's Metamorphoses including Pygmalion.

Ted Hughes20240324Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects a special collection of programmes across the month featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. And we hear from Daljit's poetry writing students at Brunel University, London.

This week we hear Listening and Writing - Moon Creatures with Ted Hughes - poems of fantasy by Ted Hughes about the Earth-Owl and other moon creatures. Read and commented on by the poet.

Produced by Sam Langdon

First broadcast on the Home Service in October 1963

And Three Score and Ten - Ted Hughes reading an excerpt of The Captain's Speech from a verse drama broadcast in 1960 and from the 1970s, The Mackerel Song.

Produced by Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra continues with a choice of programmes featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

Daljit Nagra selects Listening and Writing - Moon Creatures with Ted Hughes and his poems of fantasy. From 1963.

Ted Hughes And Seamus Heaney2024033120240401 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and concludes his special collection of programmes across the month featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. And for Easter Sunday, Daljit selects a reading from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month: Egg/Shell by Victoria Kennefick.

In the final programme in this selection, we hear Listening and Writing - Writing About Landscape. A masterclass by Ted Hughes illustrated by poems: Virginia by T.S Eliot; Inversnaid by Gerald Manley Hopkins and Wuthering Heights by Sylvia Plath.

Produced by Sam Langdon

First broadcast on the Home Service in May 1964

And Three Score and Ten featuring Ted Hughes' great fishing friend Seamus Heaney. Featuring archive readings from 1968 and 1978. Seamus Heaney talks about and reads his poems 'Digging' and 'The Ministry of Fear.

Produced by Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra concludes his choice of programmes featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Daljit Nagra selects Listening and Writing - Writing About Landscape - a Ted Hughes masterclass illustrated by poems. From 1964.

Ted Hughes And Sylvia Plath2024031020240311 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects a special collection of programmes across the month featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

And we're joined by Daljit's poetry writing students at Brunel University, London.

Listening and Writing - Learning to Think with Ted Hughes - is a talk by the writer about the poet's way of thinking. Including three poems:

View of a Pig' and 'Wodwo' by Ted Hughes

Bare Almond Trees' by DH Lawrence.

Produced for Schools Radio by Sam Langdon

First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in May 1963

And Three Score and Ten featuring a reading of 'Daddy' by Sylvia Plath - a recording made shortly before she died.

Producer: Sharon Sephton

First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in September 1963.

Daljit Nagra continues with a choice of programmes featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Daljit Nagra selects Listening and Writing - Learning to Think and 'Daddy' written and read by Sylvia Plath. From 1963.

Tennyson's Ulysses Revisited2019040720190408 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Tennyson's Ulysses Revisited.

Alfred Tennyson's much-loved and frequently anthologised poem, Ulysses has always been a favourite of the award-winning poet Sean O'Brien, but he has never fully analysed why.

The poem starts with the Greek hero on the shores of Ithaca, justifying his reasons for leaving his faithful wife Penelope once more, to set off and travel again. It ends with the famously rousing lines 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield'.

2009 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Tennyson and Sean O'Brien set out on his own journey to learn more about the poem and its enduring appeal.

He hears from Homer scholar Oliver Taplin and Dante scholar Martin McLaughlin about Tennyson's sources for the poem and its surprisingly ambiguous hero, and then learns from Victorian experts Seamus Perry, Robert Douglas Fairhurst and Linda Hughes about the tragedy in Tennyson's young life that led him to write this poem about an old man when he himself was just 24.

This is a poem about bereavement and death but, as the poet Vicki Feaver explains, it is also about the personal struggle in each of us between comfort and adventure, between the familiar and the unknown, between accepting life as it is and striving ever onward.

Anton Lesser provides a powerful new reading of Ulysses.

Produced by Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Alfred Tennyson's great poem Ulysses, explained and explored.

The Abc Of The Bbc2022102320221024 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra chooses The ABC of the BBC to mark 100 years.

The BBC was formed on 18th October 1922 to inform, educate and entertain. Daily broadcasting began on November 14th, 1922.

Published in 1928, Eleanor Farjeon's The ABC of the BBC is a collection of alphabet poems - giving a lively impression of the corporation in its early days.

This inspired Wendy Cope to offer her own specially commissioned ABC of the BBC, depicting the broadcaster in a contemporary light.

Interspersed readings from both collections offer some humorous insights into how things have changed.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2008.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Bards Of Somalia2018091620180917 (BBC7)
/7) (BBC7)
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Bards of Somalia' featuring the country's news-reporting poets.

What could Britain learn from Somalia - a country where poetry is nothing less than the main means of cultural communication?

Portrayed abroad as a land beset by gunmen, pirates and famine, it is also known by those who live there as a Nation of Poets. Somalia had no written language until 1972 and poetry has always been the country's core form of mass communication - whether the spoken word or, more recently, via cassettes and radios.

Verse has, in many areas, taken the place of history books, newspapers and television as the main means of spreading news and comment. Poets who have real skill - the true bards - have the power to shape current events and receive both social and political privileges.

Can we integrate any of these elements into British poetry? Instead of one Laureate, should we have hundreds of bards reflecting the diversity of our nation - people we can turn to for everything from the poetic equivalent of a Times leader to the latest gossip around the parish pump? Can poetry be integrated into our daily lives as successfully as in Somalia?

In discussion with presenter Rageh Omaar, poets from the Somali community in Britain and expert translators wonder if - through the medium of everything from the spoken word to text messaging - Somalia's bards might provide the germ of a new form of information sharing in Britain.

Producer: Neil Cargill

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2010.

Daljit Nagra chooses the country's news-reporting poets, as presented by Rageh Omar.

The Bards Of Whitelocks Bar2013041420180401/02 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Bards of Whitelocks Bar'.

Poet Jean Sprackland visits the characterful Leeds city centre bar, Whitelocks, famous for its poetic punters from Betjeman to TS Eliot.

In the company of poets Ian Duhig, Jon Glover, Rommi Smith and Antony Dunn, she explores the legacy of the post-war Leeds poetry renaissance that produced such eminent poets as Geoffrey Hill, Tony Harrison and Jon Silkin.

Producer: Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces The Bards of Whitelocks Bar, famous for its poetic punters.

The Charge Of The Light Brigade And Lament For The Death Of A Bullfighter20230806As part of BBC Radio 4 Extra's All Request Weekend - Daljit Nagra introduces the BBC archive programme choice of listener, Maureen Quigley.

The Charge of the Light Brigade written by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Originally broadcast to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Charge, also featuring readings from William Howard Russell's 'Times' report.

Presented by Christopher Ricks

Reader: Alan Badel.

Producer: Ian Cotterell.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October 1979.

Also featuring: Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter by Frederico Garcia Lorca.

Lorca wrote the poem in 1935: Mejias was an Andalusian bullfighter and an intimate friend of the poet; he had retired from the bull-ring a wealthy man, but later returned when he was past his prime. It is said he wanted to escape a slow death from illness or old age. He was killed in the bull-ring, and Lorca was very deeply affected by his death.

Translated from Spanish by AL Lloyd.

Set to music by Roberto Gerhard

Read by Stephen Murray.

Producer: DG Bridson

First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in May 1960.

**** To nominate a programme from the archives that you would like to hear again, please email radio4extra@bbc.co.uk

4 Extra's listeners request their favourite programmes from the BBC's archive.

The Cultural Frontline, A Poet's Guide To Lagos20230716Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Cultural Frontline - A Poet's Guide to Lagos.

Poet Efe Paul Azino introduces us to the thriving spoken word scene in Lagos and - through their poems and stage performances - the priorities of its young people.

From the political to the personal, by listening to them we get a picture of what's happening today and how they feel about it, whether it's disillusionment about the upcoming elections, or their thoughts on navigating the challenges of life in the megacity.

Lagos' spoken word scene - from new monthly 'Poetry Cafes' set up by Efe, to the Lagos International Poetry Festival – affords a platform for a vibrant movement in which women in particular are creating important work. Young people are seeking to make their voices heard where they're otherwise marginalised. The current crop of spoken word poets is conscious of the city's historical contributions to the creative and artistic life of the continent, and the ghosts of Nigeria's heroes of dissent, from Chinua Achebe to Fela Kuti, set the tone of some of the work being performed.

But spoken word in Lagos isn't just a vent, and the new generation are carving out their own path: there's room for joy and the deeply personal, and a craft and beauty to the best work being created. The pulsating city makes its presence felt throughout the programme as Efe takes us around Lagos gearing up for festival season in autumn 2018, and we meet the people the poetry scene draws in.

Producer - Megan Jones

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

The Cultural Frontline, Toni Morrison: Power In Prose And Poetry20231008Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and The Cultural Frontline - Toni Morrison: Power in Prose and Poetry.

This is a tribute to the life and work of Toni Morrison - exploring the work of contemporary poets from Puerto Rico and Ukraine.

As good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page' that is how President Obama remembered Toni Morrison, a titan of American literature, who died this week. We remember her life and reflect on the influence of the Nobel Prize-winning author.

The Ukrainian poet Ilya Kaminsky tells us about his extraordinary collection Deaf Republic about a deaf boy being shot in an occupied country. It's a haunting story which defies categorisation, feeling more like a drama than a poetry collection. And as a Deaf person writing poetry, Ilya explains, it also offers insight into what it feels like to be deaf.

Political change has come to Puerto Rico following recent demonstrations which eventually led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosello.

We hear from the poet Raquel Salas Rivera on how Puerto Rico's political situation and the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Maria have shaped their poetry.

Produced and presented by Chi Chi Izundu

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 2019.

Daljit Nagra finds the best programmes in the BBC's poetry archive.

The Dam2023031220230313 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Dam.

Award-winning writer David Almond tells a timely true story about the flooding of Northumberland's Kielder Valley 40 years ago to make a dam, and the music and poetry which lie submerged within us all

This had been one of the wildest corners of the county - a place of farms and homesteads, a school and a stretch of railway. It had also been a place of music and song, dancing and legends. Now it was all to be flooded in order to create the largest artificial lake in the UK.

David tells of the father and daughter who visited the abandoned homes on the eve of the sealing of the dam, playing one last song before the diggers moved in, the valley was submerged and they were lost forever.

'He woke her early. 'Bring your fiddle,' he said. The day was dawning. Into the valley they walked.....'

In a programme resonant with birdsong, running streams, sighing trees, leaping salmon and first-person testimonial, this is a story about the reservoirs of music, poetry and song in us all.

Featuring Northumbrian folk music, with additional fiddle-playing by Georgia Russelll, the programme culminates in a revelation by David about the identity of the protagonists in this haunting story.

Based around David Almond's picture book, The Dam, with illustrations by Levi Pinfold, published by Walker Studio.

Producer: Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2020.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Dub Poetry Of Linton Kwesi Johnson2008072220161009/10 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Dread, Beat an' Blood.

Benjamin Zephaniah reassesses dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson's 1978 debut album. Dread Beat an' Blood expressed the black British experience as it had never been heard before. Using his trademark spoken word style set to an instrumental reggae beat, the record voiced the frustration of a generation.

Linton discusses the issues he tackled on the record, such as police harassment, the National Front and the criminal justice system. How much has changed since back then?

Made by Somethin' Else for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in 2007.

Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra introduces Dread, Beat an' Blood.

The Echo Chamber, Caroline Bird And Kaveh Akbar2022030620220307 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Echo Chamber with Caroline Bird and Kaveh Akbar who talk addiction, writing and recovery with presenter Paul Farley.

My assigned counsellor told me I used

poetry to hide from myself, unhook

the ballast from my life; a floating ruse

of surreal jokes.

Paul Farley brings together two poets working on opposite sides of the Atlantic whose latest work explores addiction and recovery with surrealism and dark wit. Caroline Bird's fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, while the Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar's debut collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf was published in the UK in early 2018 to great acclaim.

Produced by Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the most interesting programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, City Streets And Seashores2017111920171120 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses 'The Echo Chamber' - poets Roy Fisher and Michael Longley talk to Paul Farley. From 2013.

Paul Farley meets poets Roy Fisher and Michael Longley. City streets and the seashore sing loud in their poems. Roy Fisher's long sequence, City about Birmingham, is the best poetic account of modern urban life. Michael Longley has been writing lyric poems about a short stretch of the coastline of County Mayo for decades.

Producer: Tim Dee.

Poets Roy Fisher and Michael Longley talk to Paul Farley. Introduced by Daljit Nagra.

The Echo Chamber, Clive James2016010420160103 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Echo Chamber', Clive James talks to Paul Farley and reads his staring-death-in-the-face poems.

Clive James has been a poet throughout his life as well as a literary critic, memoirist and television pundit. He didn't expect to be alive for this collection, after illness and old age took him in their grip a couple of years ago. But, against the odds, he's still with us. And his recent poems are extraordinarily clear-eyed and fearlessly moving. He manages to be light throughout whilst remaining, as one critic put it, deadly serious.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Clive James reads his staring-death-in-the-face poems with Paul Farley.

The Echo Chamber, Contains Strong Language Festival2021011720210118 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects a programme featuring a nominee for this year's TS Eliot prize. This special edition of the Echo Chamber is presented by Paul Farley and was recorded at the BBC Contains Strong Language festival in Hull.

Jacob Polley, Caroline Bird, Wayne Holloway-Smith and Mary Jean Chan share poems about beginnings, arrivals and coming of age.

Presenter: Paul Farley

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Craig Raine2020062820200629 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Echo Chamber - Craig Raine.

Paul Farley meets Craig Raine at his home to hear new and old poems from a famous Martian.

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home' (1979) was Craig Raine's second collection and its poems defined and encapsulated a way of looking afresh at the familiar world. Since then Raine has taught English literature, written novels, edited Fabers' poetry list and started and run magazines of criticism and new writing. He has written poetry throughout.

How Snow Falls' appeared in 2010 and he has published a book on the writing and reading of poetry called 'My Grandmother's Glass Eye'. He talks about arguing about poetry and reads a suite of new poems as well as some old ones.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Daisy Fried And Brenda Shaughnessy2019021720190218 (BBC7)A mixtape of new poems from two American poets: Daisy Fried and Brenda Shaughnessy.
The Echo Chamber, Darkness Visible2022072420220725 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses The Echo Chamber - Darkness Visible featuring poets Kayo Chingonyi, Emily Berry and George Szirtes who share new poems written after spending time in total darkness.

Visual artist Sam Winston spent a week living in total darkness, recording the experience in a series of 'blind' drawings. He later invited three poets to undertake 'darkness residencies', asking them to write new work in response to the experience.

Paul Farley visits Sam's installation at the Southbank Centre to spend time in the dark himself, and to hear the resulting poems by Kayo Chingonyi, Emily Berry and George Szirtes.

Producer: Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra explores the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Fiona Benson2020011220200113 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Echo Chamber featuring the poetry of Fiona Benson, who takes Paul Farley to her favourite swimming spot on the River Exe and shares work from her collection Vertigo + Ghost - poems of domestic life set against the backdrop of horrific world events, and of depression, motherhood and renewal.

Fiona Benson won an Eric Gregory Award in 2006 and a Faber New Poets Award in 2009. She lives in Devon with her husband and their two daughters. Her first collection, Bright Travellers, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. It won the 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the 2015 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection.

Both Fiona and Paul Farley have been shortlisted for the T.S Eliot prize in 2019. Fiona also won the Forward Prize in 2019.

With music by The Cabinet of Living Cinema.

Presenter: Paul Farley

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Michael Donaghy2019091520190916 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Echo Chamber: Michael Donaghy presented by Paul Farley.

Paul Farley remembers the poet Michael Donaghy with other poets ten years after his death. Greta Stoddart, Sean O'Brien and Don Paterson read his poems and read poems of their own that speak to their memory of the poet and teacher.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast in BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses the very best from the BBC's Poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Middle Age2015122720151228 (BBC7)Are the middle years tough for poets? With poems from Muldoon and Kathleen Jamie.
The Echo Chamber, Ocean Vuong And Mark Pajak2021021420210215 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Echo Chamber featuring the Vietnamese-American poet and the Manchester-based poet Mark Pajak.

Paul Farley meets the Vietnamese-American poet and essayist Ocean Vuong, who was awarded the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection for his remarkable debut collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds at the 2017 Forward Prizes, and who is shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize. And talks to Manchester-based Mark Pajak, a rising talent to watch, about his pamphlet Spitting Distance.

Ocean Vuong's writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a 2016 100 Leading Global Thinker, alongside Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon and Warsan Shire, Ocean was also named by BuzzFeed Books as one of '32 Essential Asian American Writers'. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he serves as an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at Umass-Amherst. He is currently at work on his first novel.

Mark Pajak was born in Merseyside. His work has appeared in The London Review of Books, Poetry London, The North, The Rialto and Magma. He has been awarded a Northern Writer's Award, an Eric Gregory Award, first place in The Bridport Prize and has been commended in the National Poetry Competition. His first pamphlet, Spitting Distance, was selected by Carol Ann Duffy as a Laureate's Choice and is published with smith

doorstop.

Producer: Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Sam Riviere And Emily Berry2021061320210614 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra continues to select the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.
The Echo Chamber, Solsticial2016011720160118 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Echo Chamber', Paul Farley introduces a poem called Tithonus for the year's midnight from Alice Oswald - a poem which lasts as long as dawn - plus music from nykelharpist Griselda Sanderson.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Echo Chamber with Alice Oswald's poem 'Tithonus'.

The Echo Chamber, The Body2017052120170522 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with an edition of 'The Echo Chamber'.

Paul Farley looks at the body in question - the shapes of poems and the people in them. How does a poet decide on the form of their poem? What do different poetic forms do to the subject of a poem? The programme travels the country and anatomises its poetic body. With found poems and field-notes, a diary of failure and success, the sound of the world being taken down in rhyme, and a look into a hive of dead bees in midwinter.

With poems from Sean Borodale, Don Paterson and Alice Oswald.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Poet-in-Residence Daljit Nagra introduces The Echo Chamber - about the shapes of poems.

The Echo Chamber, The Knowledge20151220BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Echo Chamber', Paul Farley does the Knowledge, collecting taxi poems and sounds from all over London. Including poems by John Challis, Sean O'Brien and David Harsent and songs, prose texts and other performances from a series of art events held in the capital's surviving cabbies shelters.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Echo Chamber in which Paul Farley does the Knowledge.

The Echo Chamber, The Knowledge20151221BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Echo Chamber', Paul Farley does the Knowledge, collecting taxi poems and sounds from all over London. Including poems by John Challis, Sean O'Brien and David Harsent and songs, prose texts and other performances from a series of art events held in the capital's surviving cabbies shelters.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Echo Chamber in which Paul Farley does the Knowledge.

The Echo Chamber, The Poet, The Poem, And The Savannah2016011020160111 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'The Echo Chamber', Paul Farley talks to Glyn Maxwell, poet and author of On Poetry. White, Black, Form, Pulse, Chime, Space and Time are Glyn's chapter titles. How and why are poems written? With readings by Glyn of his own work, new and old.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Glyn Maxwell, poet and author of On Poetry, discusses his work. Presented by Paul Farley.

The Echo Chamber, The Waste Remains2022092520230917 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses The Echo Chamber – The Waste Remains – a seasonal collection of poems.

Paul Farley introduces poems on the old theme of autumnal rot and mulch.

Poems from Alice Oswald, Steve Ely, Maurice Riordan, Frances Leviston and a first British listening in on the American poet Robert Wrigley: a master observer of roadkill.

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber, Wendy Cope And Lachlan Mackinnon2021082220210823 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Echo Chamber - featuring married poets Wendy Cope and Lachlan Mackinnon.

Paul Farley hears poems from Wendy Cope and Lachlan Mackinnon at their home in Ely. Since 'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis', her first collection, was published in 1986, Wendy Cope has been among the most popular of poets in Britain and her poems have lent ideas to the national imagination. Her husband, Lachlan Mackinnon, has published four highly regarded collections too and is a great poet of love and loss as well as being as funny as his wife.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Echo Chamber: Jen Hadfield On Shetland2014041320151018/19 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's and 4 Extra's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In The Echo Chamber, Paul Farley meets the poet Jen Hadfield at home and out and about in Shetland taking some of her poems from her book Byssus back to where they were written, their source.

Byssus is the name given to a mussel's beard, which anchors the shellfish to its rock. Many poems in the book explore both molluscs and bivalves, but also what a home might mean to other creatures including poets. Half the poems need wellington boots, the others a good raincoat, but the Spring is here too and life grows afresh.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Paul Farley meets poet Jen Hadfield in Shetland.

The Echo Chamber: Liz Berry And Helen Mort2015080920170813/14 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'The Echo Chamber' with Liz Berry and Helen Mort.

Two of the most striking and original first poetry collections in the last few years have been Division Street by Helen Mort and Black Country by Liz Berry. Both books are steeped in the places they were made in: West Yorkshire and the West Midlands. With Paul Farley, both poets have travelled towards one another and taken some poems back to their source. Helen Mort in the Peaks, on Sheffield streets, and then the memorably twisted spire of the church in Chesterfield. Liz Berry in a Black Country pigeon loft, an echoing canal tunnel and an ancient geological treasure trove. The heart of England is remade in these new poems. The poets end up half way between one anothers' places in a hotel that W H Auden (great poet of the unloved world) said served the best martinis in the land.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra chooses The Echo Chamber, with Paul Farley, Liz Berry and Helen Mort.

The Echo Chamber: Translations2017082720170828 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Echo Chamber': Translations

Adventures in strong language from the best of contemporary poetry. Paul Farley with translations of all sorts and hoping to topple the Tower of Babel. Can you transplant a poem from one language to another? Can a man be a woman? A fox a thought?

Featuring poems by Robin Robertson, Leontia Flynn, and Jamie McKendrick and poems journeying into English from Ancient Greece, Rome, Italy, Spanish and German.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Can a poem be transplanted from one language to another?

The Essay, Wb Yeats2023110520231106 (BBC7)To mark 100 years since poet, dramatist and prose writer WB Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects two programmes from the series The Essay.

William Butler Yeats is a commanding presence in 20th-century literature and has inspired, and occasionally infuriated, successive generations of readers, writers, and performers ever since.

The Essay: Yeats by Heart

Celebrated actress and director Fiona Shaw explains the lasting impact of her childhood introduction to the work of WB Yeats.

Producer: Stan Ferguson.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2015.

The Essay: Not Liking Yeats

Writer and cultural commentator Fintan O'Toole explains why it is not always necessary to like everything about the man himself to appreciate the wonder of the poetry of WB Yeats.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

Daljit Nagra selects two programmes from The Essay on WB Yeats. Written and read by Fiona Shaw and Fintan O'Toole.

To mark 100 years since WB Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1923), Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects two programmes from The Essay: WB Yeats - Yeats by Heart and Not liking Yeats.

Presented by Fiona Shaw and Fintan O'Toole.

Produced by Stan Ferguson.

The Fisher Poets Gathering2019012020190121 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting The Fisher Poets Gathering in which Katrina Porteous visits Astoria, Oregon, where each February commercial fishermen and women gather for a festival of poems, songs and stories they've written about their lives.

Fisher poets come from all over America - Florida, Maine, Chesapeake Bay, Alaska. These tough characters, who all know someone who has drowned, stand up and read their poems. Hundreds listen: there are sessions in bars and readings all over town. There are workshops, exhibitions, and the community radio station broadcasts proceedings, live.

In 2014, a poet came from beyond the United States. Katrina Porteous lives in the Northumbrian fishing village of Beadnell. For years she has worked with, recorded and written about her local fishing people.

She hears astonishing work from Dave Densmore, on his boat Cold Stream; from Moe Bowstern, an extraordinarily prolific writer about the lives of fisher women; from Richard King who fishes in Alaska, and farms in Hawaii. She meets, too, Lloyd Montgomery, an Aleut fisher poet. And wherever they are from, Katrina discovers, fisher poets share concerns over sustainability - of fish stocks, their communities, their way of life.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects The Fisher Poets Gathering presented by Katrina Porteous.

The Great Libraries, Aberystwyth2020072620200727 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Great Libraries - The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

From a series in which Joan Bakewell seeks out the most treasured poetry in some of the UK's great libraries. In this programme - The National Library of Wales Joan Bakewell journeys to Aberystwyth to look at some of the oldest Welsh poetry in existence.

With Rhidian Griffiths, Dr Maredudd ap Huw and Nia Mai Daniel.

Poetry read by Gwyneth Lewis.

Producer: Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2007.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Great Libraries, South Bank2022073120220801 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Great Libraries: Southbank Poetry Library presented by Joan Bakewell with readings by Alex Jennings.

An episode from the series in which Joan Bakewell seeks out poetry treasures in some of our great libraries.

In this programme Joan Bakewell dons a hard hat to visit London's South Bank Poetry Library, in re-development as part of the South Bank complex . With contributions from artistic director Jude Kelly, Simon Smith and Miriam Valencia. Poetry read by Alex Jennings.

Produced by Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljt Nagra hunts out the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Great Libraries, The Bodleian Library20230514Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC archive in search of the best poetry programmes.

This time he selects an episode of The Great Libraries, the series where Joan Bakewell seeks out the most treasured poetry in some of the UK's great libraries.

In this edition, Joan travels to the Bodleian Library to look at precious manuscripts by poets with an Oxford connection.

With:

Richard Ovenden

Chris Fletcher

Bruce Barker-Benfield

Poetry read by Andrew Motion.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2007.

Daljit Nagra finds the best poetry programmes from the BBC archive.

The Great Libraries, The Wordsworth Trust20231015Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Great Libraries - The Wordsworth Trust - which houses the biggest collection of manuscripts by William Wordsworth.

From the series in which Joan Bakewell seeks out the most treasured poetry in some of the UK's great libraries.

Joan visits Dove Cottage in the heart of the Lake District to view rare manuscripts by William Wordsworth and his fellow romantic poets.

With:

David Wilson

Pamela Woof

Richard Stanton

Poetry read by Sir Ian Mckellen.

Produced by Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra finds another poetry highlight in the BBC's archives.

Daljit Nagra selects The Great Libraries - The Wordsworth Trust. Presented by Joan Bakewell with readings by Ian McKellen. From 2007.

The Horses2023020520230206 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses The Horses by Edwin Muir. Presented by Kenneth Steven who visits Orkney to explore the poet's life.

Edwin Muir's career was bookended by two poems with almost the same title - ‘Horses' and ‘The Horses' - and these two poems encapsulate Muir's life and work. ‘Horses' was published in his debut collection in 1925 and evokes Muir's childhood home on the tiny island of Wyre in Orkney. ‘The Horses', his post-apocalyptic fable, comes from his final collection published in 1956. Yet both poems highlight the same theme: a lost paradise.

Kenneth Steven visits Wyre to explore the fears and dreams Muir distilled into those two poems. At the age of 14, Muir was forced to leave Orkney as his father sought work in Glasgow. The shock of encountering Glasgow, in his eyes an industrial Hell, had a profound effect on him. Worse still, his parents and his two brothers died in quick succession within a few years of moving to the city. Muir saw Glasgow as part of a fallen world and it brought about a breakdown from which he never fully recovered.

Kenneth talks to poets, theologians and a psychologist. And we hear the voices of Orkney and a reading of his masterpiece, The Horses.

Presenter: Kenneth Steven

Reader: Paul Young

Producer: Jeremy Grange

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The House I Grew Up In2017012920170130 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits BBC radio's poetry archive with 'The House I Grew Up In', featuring Jackie Kay.

Recalling a childhood in Glasgow which inspired her to write, the poet takes Wendy Robbins to meet her mum and dad back at the family home.

Adopted at birth, Jackie was raised with her brother - the only black children in the neighbourhood. Meeting friends, relatives and neighbours, Jackie reveals how her childhood experiences inspired her to start writing.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra introduces The House I Grew Up In, featuring Jackie Kay in Glasgow.

The Hunting Of The Snark Read, By Alec Guinness2022122520221226 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll.

Alec Guinness reads Lewis Carroll's epic nonsense poem - a surreal odyssey in which a bizarre group of characters sets off in search of an elusive and mysterious beast.

Producer: Douglas Cleverdon

First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme in December 1963.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Kalevala, Finland's National Epic2009122720181230/31 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects The Kalevala: Finland's National Epic.

Storyteller and musician Nick Hennessey travels to Finland to explore the mythical world of the country's national poem, The Kalevala.

First published in 1835, this 50-chapter epic inspired a 19th-century artistic awakening and remains a cornerstone of contemporary Finnish culture. Speaking to musicians and critics, Hennessey finds out how the poem helped shape the nation.

Produced by Phil Smith and Simon Jacobs.

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2009.

A Unique Broadcasting Company Production for BBC Radio.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces The Kalevala: Finland's National Epic.

The King's Muse2021050920210510 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The King's Muse - featuring poetry written by a young Henry VIII.

In The King's Muse, Peggy Reynolds explores the world of the Tudor court, through the poetry of Henry VIII. Held at the British Library is a songbook that includes poetry and compositions by this Tudor monarch. These were not written by an aged despot with a fondness for divorcing and executing his wives, but instead by a youth who came to the throne as a teenager. These poems were penned by an educated young King who enjoyed games, hunting, and performing his own works in front of his courtiers. Henry's early court was one of the most brilliant in Europe, and a centre for culture and pageantry.

Historian David Starkey joins Peggy Reynolds to put these poems into context, lifting the lid on this cultured youthful King, long overshadowed by the machinations of the older tyrant he was to become. Peggy's journey begins at the British Library, where she is joined by musicologist Professor David Fallows as they leaf through this songbook compiled in the sixteenth century. Professor Raymond Siemens discusses the importance of this poetry in the development of Tudor literature, and delves into some of the reoccurring themes including love and politics, foreshadowing the more complicated monarch that would emerge.

Produced by Luke Whitlock.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Lady Of Shalott2017100920171008 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive choosing Adventures in Poetry - The Lady of Shalott.

Peggy Reynolds explores the lasting impact of the poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

The time and land of Camelot, a cursed lady must weave in a tower, but never look from the window. But when Sir Lancelot passes by, singing 'tirra lira' by the river, she can bear it no longer - the Lady of Shalott wants to see.

Why is this much loved, much recited, much sung poem still intriguing people: historians, painters, weavers and American indie pop singers?

Featuring songs by Rufus Wainwright and an archive reading of the poem by Dame Peggy Ashcroft from 1967.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry featuring Tennyson's Lady of Shalott.

The Lament Of Swordy Well2020032220200323 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Lament of Swordy Well in which Paul Farley explores ecology, Englishness and `home' through John Clare's landmark poem.

My name will quickly be the whole

That's left of Swordy Well.

So wrote John Clare in the 1830s, before he was committed to the asylum, in one of his most moving and proto-ecological poems. Swordy Well, a tract of limestone heath near Clare's home in Northamptonshire, is not just the subject though - astonishingly it's also the narrator. Through Clare, the place gained a voice - a rarity even today in English poetry.

The site - now Swaddywell - is presently one of scientific interest, and has been preserved for its wildlife and habitat. However following Clare's time - and his poem's catalogue of the place's neglect and abuse following enclosure - the area found itself being used as a racetrack for stock cars, a site for illegal raves and parties, and even became a fly tipping eyesore.

Poet Paul Farley, who has edited John Clare's poems, goes back to the original location and takes the poem back to its source too, meeting with fellow writers, conservationists and locals who remember the partying and racing in Swordy Well. How would the place speak now, nearly two centuries after enclosure?

Responding with a new poem of Paul Farley's, and with a vivid soundscape, The Lament of Swordy Well reflects on the nature of location, ecology, `home' and voice in the English landscape poem.

Producer: Aasiya Lodhi

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive

The Living Poet, Fleur Adcock1985081120170528/29 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with archive featuring New Zealand born poet, Fleur Adcock.

I've written a lot about places - too much, I sometimes think. It seems to have something to do with my wandering childhood'. In 'The Living Poet', Fleur Adcock introduces and reads a selection from her work.

Plus, in an interview from BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Fleur talks to Martha Kearney about her personal life.

Producers: Fraser Steel and Olive Clancy.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1985 and 2008.

Daljit Nagra chooses 'The Living Poet', featuring New Zealand poet, Fleur Adcock.

The Lost Poets Of The Raincoat Shop2019092920190930 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects The Lost Poets of the Raincoat Shop presented by Ian MacMillan.

Ian McMillan tells the story of lost poets through the letters, diaries and scattered pages of poetry found in a derelict raincoat shop in Sheffield. The papers were found by an engineer who saved them from the skip and took them home to read. Fascinated by the story they revealed, he donated them to the Sheffield Archive.

Ian McMillan looks through the dust covered pages that still, he says, give off a faint whiff of raincoat. The letters document the friendship between the shop owner and an uneducated man who were brought together by a love of words and writing. Ian says, 'It's an extraordinary tale of friendship, and what is left behind.

He talks to John Gregory who devoted his lunchtimes to going through the derelict shop gathering together the pages before they were put in a skip, and to Tim Knebel, the archivist who has created order out of the scattered pages.

Ian also talks to historian Helen Smith about the uniqueness of Sheffield during the early years of the 1900s, when uneducated steelworkers yearned to better themselves by learning about philosophy and poetry.

Finally, Ian contributes to the amount of words generated by the two men by composing his own work based on the daily takings recorded in the cash book of the raincoat shop.

Producer: Janet Graves

A Pennine production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

Ian McMillan discovers lost poets through notes found on the floor of a derelict shop.

The Miners' Way2024011420240115 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and, in the week that the TS Eliot prize is announced [14.1.2024] he chooses to feature a programme about one of the nominees - Jane Clarke - shortlisted for her collection A Change in the Air.

The Irish poet Jane Clarke lives in Glenmalure, a remote and rugged valley in County Wicklow, Ireland. The valley marks the start of the Miners' Way, a long-distance path developed by a local community group, traversing three Wicklow valleys, Glenmalure, Glendalough and Glendasan, and taking in six old, disused mine sites.

The Miners' Way has inspired Jane to write a sequence of poems responding to this rich natural and cultural heritage.

As she walks the Miners' Way, Jane meets some of her neighbours - local historian Carmel O'Toole, farmer Pat Dunne and mountain leader Charles O'Byrne.

She also visits Robbie Carter, one of the few people who can talk first-hand about working in these valleys in the mining industry, which came to an end in 1957. Now in his 80s, Robbie became a miner at the age of 16. He describes his life as a miner in the mid-20th century and the story of a fatal mining accident in January 1957. Robbie was seriously injured and never worked in a mine again.

The poems in the programme by Jane Clarke include Birthing the Lamb from her 2019 collection When the Tree Falls.

All other poems are inspired by the landscape, heritage and stories of the Miners' Way.

Producer: Claire Cunningham

Executive Producer: Julien Clancy

A Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Jane Clarke -The Miners' Way featuring the Irish poet who is inspired by the walk in County Wicklow. From 2020.

The Namer Of Clouds2018061020180611 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Namer of Clouds' showcasing Luke Howard.

Poet Lavinia Greenlaw composes a tribute to the amateur meteorologist who in 1802 devised the cloud classification system and inspired the Romantics.

Luke Howard, often called 'the father of meteorology' was a chemist, whose ideas for cloud classification were stirred when he was a schoolboy. In his late 20s, he composed the influential 'Essay on the Modification of Clouds', which was delivered at the Askesian Society, a fortnightly London science meeting.

Howard's influence upon art and poetry is as impressive as his meteorological discoveries. His essay became the subject of poems by Goethe and Percy Bysshe Shelley and he's believed to have inspired some of John Constable's landscapes.

Before composing a new poem dedicated to Luke Howard, Lavinia goes cloud spotting in Somerset with Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society. Richard Hamblyn, Luke Howard's biographer, describes how he gave the Romantics a new scientific language and Constable expert Anne Lyles examines Luke Howard's impact on the visual arts.

Producer: Paul Smith

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Daljit Nagra selects a poem about Luke Howard, who named the clouds and inspired Romantics

The Person From Porlock2021100320211004 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revists the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Person From Porlock. Presented by Paul Farley.

When the poet Coleridge failed to complete his 'dream poem' Kubla Khan, he laid the blame on a 'person from Porlock' who had called to see him on business, thereby fatally interrupting his writing.

The Person from Porlock' has come to represent anything that interrupts the creative process, and he has inspired a number of poems in his own right, from writers as diverse as Stevie Smith and R S Thomas.

Paul Farley travels to Porlock in Somerset in search of Coleridge's mysterious visitor and, in the company of Tim Liardet, Hester Jones and Tom Mayberry, contemplates a number of poetic interruptions - both obstructive and curiously inspirational.

Producer: Emma Harding

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poem Of The Cloak2019042820190429 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting The Poem of the Cloak. Presenter Shamshad Khan explores the Qasidah Burda, or The Poem of the Cloak, arguably the most memorised and recited poem in the Muslim world. The poem is recited by Nadim Sawalha.

Producer - Nicola Humphries

The first broadcast in BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Poem of the Cloak, the most recited poem in the Muslim world.

The Poet And The Murderer2015042620180415/16 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Poet and the Murderer'.

Simon Worrall reveals how convicted double murderer Mark Hofmann forged an Emily Dickinson poem so perfect it fooled leading scholars and experts. A gripping true story of poetry, murder and the art of forgery.

Dickinson famously lived much of her life as a recluse, producing her works of concentrated brilliance from the bedroom of her father's house in Amherst, Massachusetts. She chose not to publish during her lifetime and hand-sewn booklets containing some 1,800 poems were discovered in a locked box in her room after her death.

Why does Dickinson continue to fascinate, and what might Hofmann's fake poem tell us about the true poet's work and life?

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio in 2015.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces 'The Poet and the Murderer'.

The Poet Librettists2021070420210705 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poet Librettists - about those who write for the operatic stage.

Michael Symmons Roberts is one of our most accomplished poets, and has for some years also built a reputation as a first rate librettist, in collaboration with James Macmillan. In the course of his alternative operatic career he's had much time to consider why so many poets have decided to have a go at writing for the opera stage - even though the collaborative experience is often so alien to poets most comfortable writing alone. He meets some of the modern era opera's most illustrious practitioners, including Harrison Birtwistle, David Harsent, Alice Goodman as well as James Macmillan - and more skeptical voices such as Don Paterson, a prize-winning poet who has been highly reluctant in the past to have his own words set to music as he regards them to have their own internal music already. Michael also presents archive audio from perhaps the greatest poet-librettist of all, W.H. Auden, to try to establish precisley what it is that poets bring to the operatic table that other writers - such as novelists and playwrights - do not; he also investigates how writing for the voice rather than the page affects the writing style of poets.

Produced by Geoff Bird

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poet Of Sparty Lea. In Search Of Barry Macsweeney2009090620170108/09 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and spotlights Barry MacSweeney.

Young poet Tom Chivers reclaims the reputation of counter-cultural poet Barry MacSweeney, who wrote his first poem at seven, began a lifelong struggle with solitary hard drinking at 16 and was nominated for the Oxford Poetry Chair at 18.

A protege of Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting, he was a regular at the Morden Tower in Newcastle along with Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Allen Ginsberg, and Ed Dorn. MacSweeney was a man of contradictions; a Romantic poet, a political journalist who raged against the world but also a naturalist whose writing was rooted in the Northumbrian landscape. His refusal to engage with the Establishment was incompatible with commercial or mainstream success, and he died an alcoholic's death, on the fringes of the poetry scene.

A 16-year-old Tom Chivers encountered MacSweeney at what would turn out to be his final poetry reading; a week later he was dead. Now Tom goes on a personal journey to explore the life and work of his hero. Travelling to the Northumbrian landscape which anchored MacSweeney's work, Tom investigates why his radical style was never palatable to the mainstream but also why his work still appeals to a new generation of poets today.

Producer: Allegra McIlroy

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Daljit Nagra selects The Poet of Sparty Lea spotlighting Northumberland's Barry MacSweeney

The Poetic Spark2019100620191007 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses The Poetic Spark featuring the novelist and poet Muriel Spark. Presented by AL Kennedy.

The inscription on Muriel Spark's tombstone in Tuscany reads 'Muriel Spark. Poeta'.

Surprising perhaps: because, despite the fact that Spark always referred to herself as a poet, it's her reputation as a novelist, and the creator of the charismatic Jean Brodie, for which she's better known.

Before Muriel was anywhere near her prime, she'd established a reputation as a poet. Aged just fourteen, she won a prestigious poetry competition celebrating the centenary of Walter Scott. Later, she published several collections to glowing reviews and completed a controversial stint as Editor of the Poetry Review, during which time she gathered as many enemies as her fictional alter-ego, Jean Brodie (notably Marie Stopes about whom she famously quipped: 'I used to think it a pity that her mother rather than she had not thought of birth control')!

Muriel Spark kept writing poetry throughout her life. 10 years after her death, AL Kennedy, a long term admirer of her novels and short stories, wonders what new insights the poems might lend to her writing and character.

Produced by Lynsey Moyes.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's Poetry archive.

The Poetry Editor20231001Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and to celebrate National Poetry Day (5.10.2023) he chooses 'The Poetry Editor'.

The publishing house Faber and Faber, has been in existence for over 90 years.

It is famous for its poetry list - Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Derek Walcott, Philip Larkin, Marianne Moore, WH Auden and TS Eliot, who, as poetry editor, brought the work of some of these poets into the world. The poetry editor, then, has a significant role.

Hannah Sullivan, winner of the TS Eliot Prize for her collection 'Three Poems', teases out what poetry editors actually do.

She talks to leading poetry editors, Neil Astley of Bloodaxe; Parisa Ebrahimi of Chatto & Windus and Matthew Hollis, who sat at Eliot's desk at Faber.

They discover and nurture new voices, but also have to sustain their lists. Might there be figures so distinguished they are beyond editing? Paul Muldoon, who might fall into this category, argues no - he longs for the exercise of editorial authority. Is the relationship of editor to poet akin to that of doctor and patient? Is the editorial office like the confessional - strictly confidential?

Hannah also speaks to several leading poets - Simon Armitage, Paul Muldoon, Julia Copus, Sarah Howe and Kayo Chingonyi - about being edited, and hears from people at the beginning of their careers such as Phoebe Stuckes.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2019.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poetry Of Aran2018031120180312 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Poetry of Aran'.

For centuries The Aran Islands, three limestone rocks of the west coast of Ireland, have been an inspiration to writers, artists and intellectuals, in search of an authentic Irish experience.

As the future of the Irish language in Ireland is far from secure, Daljit visits the islands where Irish is still the first language, and explores their rich poetic heritage.

He speaks to the poet Seamus Heaney about why he wrote three poems about the Aran Islands in his first collection and Heaney reads some poetry in Irish for the first time around 40 years; Daljit also visits the cottage where Anglo-Irish playwright John Millington Synge wrote his influential journal of island life - a mouthpiece for the Gaelic-seeking spirit of the Irish literary revival.

We also hear from a local poet who continues the tradition of oral poetry on the islands; and explore the life of one of the key modern, Irish language poets, Máirtín Ó Direáin, who took his inspiration from his birthplace on Aran.

Producer: Jo Wheeler

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

Poet Daljit Nagra explores why generations of writers have been drawn to Aran.

The Poetry Of History, Easter 1916, By Wb Yeats2022050820220509 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poetry of History - Easter 1916.

Jonathan Bate examines historical events through the poetry they inspired.

Easter, 1916 by W.B. Yeats

With the poet Theo Dorgan, novelist Anne Enright and historian Diarmaid Ferriter, Jonathan visits places where Irish history was 'changed, changed utterly' and, Yeats declared, 'a 'terrible beauty' was born, - the General Post Office in Dublin, the hub of the Easter Rising 90 years ago, and Kilmainham Gaol, where several of the rebels were executed.

The poem is read by Jim Norton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra selects interesting poems from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poetry Of History, Peterloo And Shelley2019081120190812 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects The Poetry of History – Peterloo and Shelley.

Jonathan Bate investigates the connections between historical events and the poems they inspired.

Jonathan travels to Manchester, scene of the 1819 Peterloo massacre that provoked Shelley's ferocious attack on the government of the day, The Mask of Anarchy.

Poet Tom Paulin and historian Clive Emsley are on hand to measure the weight of the poem as history and verse and watch it roll down the 19th century as a clarion call to the Chartists and a warning about the brutality of the industrial revolution.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra chooses The Poetry of History - Peterloo and Shelley.

The Poetry Of History, The English Civil War And Marvell20230903Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poetry of History - The English Civil War and Marvell.

From a series that investigates the connections between historical events and the poems they inspired.

Jonathan Bate visits Westminster to work on Andrew Marvell's An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland, in which the poet wrestles with his loyalty to the recently beheaded King Charles I and his respect for the energy of Oliver Cromwell.

Producer : Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2006.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poetry Of History, Ts Eliot And The Blitz2022090420220905 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poetry of History - TS Eliot and the Blitz presented by Jonathan Bate.

How does history influence poetry?

Jonathan Bate visits the sleepy village of Shamley Green and the roof of London's St Paul's Cathedral to uncover the links between TS Eliot's Four Quartets and the raging fires of the Blitz.

Archive from TS Eliot reading his own poems.

Producer: Martin Smith

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2006.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Poetry Of Instagram20230402Poet Daljit Nagra's analysis of the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive. Daljit revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poetry of Instagram featuring the work of Rupi Kaur.

Poets writing on the social media platform 'Instagram' have amassed millions of followers, and have a global audience that responds to their work instantaneously.

In this programme we explore the way readers all over the world react to the work of Rupi Kaur, one of the best known of these poets, and ask how 'Instagram' itself is influencing the form and style of poems (including the haiku of Johnathan Rice, who satirises the way we increasingly live through social media).

Rupi Kaur and Johnathan Rice are amongst the 'Instagram Poets' who are now so popular they have published books. Kaur's latest is 'the sun and her flowers' (Simon and Schuster), whilst Rice's is 'Farewell my Dudes: 69 Dystopian Haikus' (Hat and Beard Press).

Music was specially composed for this documentary by Scanner, a musician who is interested in the relationship between technology and speech. He has previously worked on projects with artists including Bryan Ferry, Wayne MacGregor, Michael Nyman, Steve McQueen, and Laurie Anderson.

Presented and produced by Faith Lawrence.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

The Poetry Olympian, Michael Horovitz At 752022032020220321 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Poetry Olympian - Michael Horovitz at 75. Celebrating the British beat poet and musician. Presented by Simon Warner.

The British Beat poet and musician Michael Horovitz was 75 on April 4th 2010, and in this lively celebration of a lifetime's idiosyncratic poetry output, his admirer, music lecturer and writer Simon Warner, makes the case that no-one has had a greater influence on the development of British poetry over the last 50 years.

Horovitz has spent decades publishing and promoting the verse of the English underground, often at his own expense and in the face of establishment indifference.

His notion that poetry should be seen and heard, often with music has been shared and developed in collaboration with notable musicians from Stan Tracy to Damon Albarn.

His influence on publishing has been as significant as his impact on performance. In 1959 he launched New Departures, which first published works by Beckett, Burroughs and Ginsberg. The magazine grew into a famously anarchic touring show which brought poetry, music, visual art and performance to venues all over Britain during the counterculture explosion of the 1960s.

Since 1980 he organised a a number of Poetry Olympics events that have showcased, inventive and inspiring collaborations between poets and musicians.

Simon Warner charts the impact of this energetic and eccentric provoker of the establishment and talks to those who have worked with him including poets Pete Brown, Roger McGough, John Hegley, Valerie Bloom and Libby Houston, musicians Laurie Morgan and Damon Albarn, and writer Barry Miles.

Produced by Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archives.

The Refuge Box2023102920231030 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Between the Ears: The Refuge Box with poet Katrina Porteous.

Half way between Holy Island and the mainland of Northumbria a flight of steps leads to a wooden cabin on stilts - the Refuge Box.

It was built to save people cut off by the tide from being swept away and drowned.

This is the focus of a radio poem by Katrina Porteous; the physical embodiment of sanctuary, the power of this idea, and its fragility.

Her poetry, recorded all over Holy Island and in the Refuge Box itself, is interspersed by other voices: island fishermen who remember rescues and tragedies, the coastguard and lifeboat crew, the bird warden, the Franciscan vicar of Holy Island, and a refugee who fled her west African homeland to seek sanctuary in Britain.

Beyond the human voices is the poetry of the place itself, the seals singing, the wheeze of swans flying over Holy Island, sudden jet fighters protecting this sanctuary yet violating its peace and, always, the wind and the sea.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and finds another highlight.

Daljit Nagra selects Between the Ears: The Refuge Box with a radio poem by Katrina Porteous inspired by Northumbria. From 2007.

The Reindeer Poets2023010120230102 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses The Reindeer Poets:

Andrew McGibbon explores the poetry, song and yoiking of the indigenous Sámi people who live across the Western European Arctic - a region including Russia's Kola Peninsula, Norway, Finland and Sweden. 

The relationship between the traditional epic yoik songs and contemporary poetry is explored, along with the multimedia approach that several contemporary Sámi poets and artists choose for their creative expression. The yoik is the distinctive form of cultural expression for the Sámi people and comparable to the traditional chanting of some First Nations in the Northern American continent.

The United Nations designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, and the programme features Mikkal Morottaja, aka Amoc, a poet who raps in Inari Sámi - a language spoken by fewer than 300 people in the world. He raps about Father Christmas being overwhelmed with selfish Christmas demands.

Sámi poetry takes tradition seriously, looking back to find the way forward, and giving a group of people in the Arctic north a voice.

Featuring the sounds of melting and retreating ice in the Arctic along with the sounds of creatures living under the ice as an active, low volume soundtrack audible throughout the programme.

Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon.

Producers: Louise Morris and Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Slow Machine2016061920190401 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Slow Machine featuring the former Canal Laureate, Jo Bell.

Jo Bell's 67ft narrowboat 'Tinker' has been her floating, roving home for 13 years. As she prepares to leave Tinker for a new boat, she writes a poem series about her years afloat. Elderflower, coal smoke and diesel. Ducks, engines and ratcheting locks.

The Slow Machine weaves soundscape and words into a documentary poem of canal life.

Jo Bell is one of the most exciting poets now writing and no time is wasted in the company of her work.' - Carol Ann Duffy.

With music by The Cabinet of Living Cinema.

Producer: Mair Bosworth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Daljit Nagra chooses a run of poems featuring Poet Laureates. First, Jo Bell.

The Sonnet And The Sword2013081120180701/02 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'The Sonnet and The Sword'.

Peggy Reynolds explores the world of the Elizabethan Court, through the poetry written by its courtiers - evoking a world where rivalry between them was common, and flattering the Queen often involved much spectacle.

Poetry during the reign of Elizabeth I developed into a national literature, with courtiers as the elite consumers judging literary developments, and often being at the forefront of innovations themselves.

Professor Steven May discusses the merits of this output, which often influenced those outside the court, such as Shakespeare. Dr Susan Doran helps examine the bigger picture, including religious intolerance, the war with Spain, and concern over the royal succession. These national themes are very present in the poetry of the court.

Producer: Luke Whitlock

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces the rivalrous flattering of Elizabeth I through poetry.

The Still Life Poet2020081620200817 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Still Life Poet featuring the extraordinary life and work of little known Scottish poet, William Soutar who spent the last 13 years of his life in a bed.

Scotland's National Poet, Liz Lochhead, came across one poem of Soutar's that gave her the shivers, but she knows very little about the man and the rest of his work.

William Soutar produced many collections of poetry, most of which he wrote in one room and in what was to become his deathbed. Soutar had developed a debilitating condition of the spine which paralysed him from the waist down. Unable to move and with only a window to see the world, he became a Still Life Poet.

In his final years, Soutar wrote diaries which show a man with a wicked sense of humour, caricaturing his numerous bedside visitors and turning his ailments into playful rhymes. We also discover a mind that dissects everything from war, religion, sex and mortality, through to the songs sung by the blackbirds outside his window.

William Soutar was arguably one of Scotland's greatest poets and a key figure of the Scottish Literary Renaissance but why has his name been buried?

Liz Lochhead travels to the Soutar house in his hometown of Perth to find out and to assess how this sense of place, along with his disability, shaped his writing with the help of people who believe his name and work should be remembered.

Readings by Monty d'Inverno

Producer: Emily Smallman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects The Still Life Poet about William Soutar who spent 13 years in bed.

The Verse That Stings2022042420220425 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects The Verse that Stings in which Ian Hislop celebrates the sharp, deflating barbs of Alexander Pope and the 18th Century satirists.

Ian first came across Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and the poems of the 18th Century Scriblerus club at school and later studied them at university. He was struck by these rude, offensive and funny poems about the government, the aristocracy and the machinations of power.

As the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye, Ian views a direct line between his work and Pope's biting satire. Pope and his circle of literary friends debated how offensive their satires should be and whether or not to name and shame subjects.

Ian meets Armando Iannucci, the creator of television satires including The Thick Of It and Veep, who compares the rhythms of Alexander Pope's couplets to the comedian's perfect punch line.

Ian visits Hampton Court Palace, the setting of the long poem that made Pope's name, The Rape of The Lock. Professor Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway University, helps uncover its true story of a trivial confrontation between two leading Catholics of the time.

Professor Edith Hall of Kings College London describes how Pope and the Scriblerians were in awe of Juvenal, Rome's most vitriolic satirist. And Christopher Reid, author of Six Bad Poets a farce in verse about London's literary establishment, explains why some poets are reluctant to write satires today.

Producer: Paul Smith

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2014.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

The Whitsun Weddings2013120120180930 (BBC7)
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin.

This was the title poem of the collection published in 1964 that made Larkin famous. Poet Jean Sprackland, who teaches Larkin and whose father, a librarian, met him professionally, retraces the train journey at the heart of the poem.

She considers Larkin's views about marriage, about class and about the 'state of Britain', against the background of the poet's own seemingly quiet life in the provincial town of Hull.

For many, Whitsun Weddings is Philip Larkin's most characteristic poem, expressing his detachment from the crowd and from love and marriage of the ordinary sort.

With James Booth, Andrew Motion, John Osborne and Larkin's surviving mistress, the 'third woman' Betty Mackereth.

Producer: Susan Marling

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin.

The Women Of Rainer Maria Rilke2009051020170305/06 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Women of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Hayley Radford explores the influence of significant women on the life and work of poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Regarded by many as one of the most significant German-speaking literary figures of the early Modern period, Rilke wrote lyrical verse and prose including Sonnets to Orpheus and Letter to A Young Poet.

Hayley examines how he was dominated by the love of his mother and later pushed himself to the very limits of romantic love. The poet threw himself into endless heartbreak, many relationships, even abandoning a wife and child. He became the passive lover of a series of forthright, older women, including a princess and some heiresses, all in pursuit of the sweet agonies with which he could infuse his writing.

Featuring contributions from Rilke experts Dirk Heisserer, Professor Karen Leeder, Dr Ben Hutchinson and Professor Von Bulow.

Producer: Lucy Greenwell

Made for BBC Radio 4 by White Pebble Media and first heard in 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces The Women of Rainer Maria Rilke, presented by Hayley Radford.

Thomas Hardy And Selima Hill2020053120200601 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Word on the Street - Dorset.

Poet Jackie Kay travels to Dorset to visit Max Gate , Thomas Hardy 's last home, where Hardy wrote much of his poetry in later life. And she meets Selima Hill , an award-winning poet who lives on the Dorset coastline.

Producer Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best from the BBC's poetry archive.

Thomas Lynch's Season Of Innocence2009122020181216/17 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Thomas Lynch's Season of Innocence.

Essayist, poet and funeral director, Thomas Lynch presents poems that reveal the relationship between poets and their children.

Producer: Kate Bland

A Just Radio production first broadcast on Radio 4 in 2009.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Thomas Lynch's Season of Innocence.

Time For Verse, Carol Ann Duffy2019090120190902 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Time for Verse: Carol Ann Duffy
Time For Verse, Gavin Ewart2018042220180423 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Time for Verse' featuring Gavin Ewart.

Poet Gavin Ewart (1916-1995) talks about his life and range of work including reflections on fighting in the Second World War.

Presenter: George MacBeth

Producer: Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces Gavin Ewart in conversation with George MacBeth.

Time For Verse, James Berry 1-2-52020031520200316 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses the first two of five episodes of Time for Verse featuring James Berry in conversation with George MacBeth about his life and poetry.

Poems: In God's Greatest Country, 1945; On An Afternoon Train From Purley To Victoria, 1955; White Child Meets Black Man.

Producer - Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

James Berry: Time For Verse - ep 2

The second of five programmes in which George MacBeth talks to James Berry about his life and his poetry.

Poems: Travelling As We Are; It's Me Man; Two Black Labourers On A London Building Site; In-a Brixtan Markit

Daljit Nagra selects Time for Verse featuring James Berry. From 1988.

Time For Verse, James Berry 3-4-52020062120200622 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Time for Verse: James Berry episodes 3 and 4 in which George MacBeth continues his conversation with the Caribbean poet about his life and work.

Poems: 'Earth And Air'; 'Flame And Water'; 'Dialogue Between Two Large Village Women'; 'Thoughts On My Mother'; 'You Two'.

Poems: “From Lucy, Englan' Lady ?; “From Lucy: A Favour ?; “From Lucy: We Women ?.

Reader: Mona Hammond

Produced by Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Time For Verse, Liz Lochhead 3 To 4-52017121020171211 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra introduces 'Time for Verse' - George MacBeth talks with Liz Lochhead.
Time For Verse, Liz Lochhead: 1-2-52017092420170925 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra chooses Time for Verse: Liz Lochhead, presented by George MacBeth.
Time For Verse, Poets Laureate: Ben Jonson And Colley Cibber2019042120190422 (BBC7)With the imminent announcement of a new Poet Laureate in 2019, poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Time for Verse Poets Laureate: Ben Jonson and Colley Cibber.

Sean Street presents two programmes about past Poet Laureates - one the first, and the other, arguably, the worst.

Produced by Margaret Bradley.

Readers - Martin Jarvis and David Goodland.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.

Daljit Nagra selects Time for Verse featuring the first and worst Poet Laureates.

Time For Verse, Spike Milligan2019021020190211 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra introduces two episodes of Time for Verse with Spike Milligan.
Time For Verse, Spike Milligan2019051920190520 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting Time for Verse with Spike Milligan in conversation with George MacBeth.

Featuring episodes 3 and 4, Spike talks about his life and poetry, with examples of his poems read by Tony Robinson.

Poems:

What The Wiggle Woggle Said

Tell Me Little Woodworm

Dr. David Mantle

Revenge

From Harry Secombe

Failure

Grandad's Bedtime Story

Two Funny

The Future

2B Or Not 2B

Producer – Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best from the BBC's Poetry archive.

Time For Verse: Carol Ann Duffy2019040720190623/24 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Time for Verse (episodes 1 and 2) featuring Carol Ann Duffy in conversation with George MacBeth.

They talk of growing up in Liverpool and the public and political poetry of Duffy's early writing years.

Produced by Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989

Daljit Nagra continues a series featuring Poet Laureates. This week, Carol Ann Duffy.

Time For Verse: Charles Causley And Blithe Sprits: Pets2021060620210607 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects two programmes: Time For Verse: Charles Causley and Blithe Sprits on poetry written about pets.

Time For Verse: Charles Causley – Ep 1/5

George MacBeth talks to Cornish poet, Charles Causley. Poems: “Betjeman 1984 ?; “Armistice Day ?; “Nursery Rhyme Of Innocence And Experience ?. Reader - Michael Deacon.

Producer - Alec Reid

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

Blithe Sprits - 5/5 Pets

Cats, dogs and even hares have inspired great poetry, often written by their owners when the animals died. In this programme, Joanna Pinnock explores the roles of pets in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and finds out why they make such good subjects for epitaphs.

Producer – Brett Westwood.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC poetry archive.

Time For Verse: Dannie Abse2019050520190506 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra introduces Time for Verse - Dannie Abse. Presented by George MacBeth.
To My Dear And Loving Husband, By Anne Bradstreet2009111520181014/15 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Adventures in Poetry' featuring the story behind Anne Bradstreet's poem 'To My Dear and Loving Husband'.

Anne's poem has been anthologised in many collections of love poetry. How did a near-invalid woman, enduring not only the privations of migrating to the New World but also the stifling Puritan ethic established there, manage to write something so warm and personal that it still speaks to us today?

Producer: Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces the story behind the poem To My Dear and Loving Husband.

Tongue And Talk, The Dialect Poets: East Midlands2023112620231127 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands with poems from Nottinghamshire.

Writer James Walker unearths the dialect poetry of the Nottinghamshire miners who penned their verse underground in the county where he was born and bred.

Through the humour of poems like Miner's Dream and Pity Pony, James explores a language used almost exclusively by miners and finds retired pitmen still reciting pit talk poetry in pubs and other venues across Nottinghamshire.

He says: 'these men cry regularly at this poetry. Big retired pit men getting all emotional. It's quite an experience.

As part of the programme, James visits the former home of famous Nottinghamshire novelist and poet DH Lawrence where he meets mining historian and former miner David Amos. He also talks to Natalie Braber, Associate Professor at Nottingham Trent University about her research into pit talk and dialects, language and identity.

James hears some of the poems penned underground, translates the dialect and tries to understand what made so many miners turn to poetry.

He also discovers how dialect pit poetry is being kept alive by forming the lyrics to new folk music.

The programme also explores the Nottinghamshire dialect more widely including the use of the greeting 'duck'.

Plus a performance by Nottinghamshire dialect poet Bridie Squires about the local word 'mardy'.

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands with poems from Nottinghamshire. From 2018.

Through the humour of poems like Miner's Dream and Pity Pony, James explores a language used almost exclusively by miners and finds retired pitmen still reciting pit talk poetry in pubs and other venues across Nottinghamshire. He says: 'these men cry regularly at this poetry. Big retired pit men getting all emotional. It's quite an experience.

James hears some of the poems penned underground, translates the dialect and tries to understand what made so many miners turn to poetry. He also discovers how dialect pit poetry is being kept alive by forming the lyrics to new folk music.

Meanwhile part of the programme explores the Nottinghamshire dialect more widely including the use of the greeting 'duck'. There's also a performance by Nottinghamshire dialect poet Bridie Squires about the local word 'mardy'.

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast in 2018.

Tongue And Talk, The Dialect Poets: North West20230827Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archives and selects Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets, from a series exploring dialect poetry in different parts of England.

Actor and writer Catherine Harvey returns to her roots in north west England to see if the dialect poetry of the cotton mills of 19th Century Lancashire is still alive today.

The Lancashire dialect poets were once household names and their writings articulated the voices of cotton weavers and mill workers in Victorian industrial Lancashire with a mixture of humour and pathos. Catherine Harvey says,

'The vivid dialect remains with me, not as something quaintly archaic but present now in the way I speak and write, their voices resonating in the language heard around the north west today.'

Producers: Ian Mackness, Catherine Harvey and Ashley Byrne

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best poetry programmes from the BBC's archive.

Tony Harrison And Sean O'brien2017041620200927/28 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with ‘Fine Lines' featuring Tony Harrison and Sean O'Brien.

Poets Tony and Sean are in conversation with Christopher Cook in Newcastle.

Fine Lines was a series looking at contemporary poetry.

Producer: Susan Roberts

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Daljit Nagra selects Fine Lines featuring Tony Harrison and Sean O'Brien.

Tracy K Smith And Patricia Lockwood2016071720180211/12 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive selecting The Echo Chamber with Tracy K Smith and Patricia Lockwood.

Outside of a few famous names, recent British poetry has made little impact on American life and letters. The same might be said in reverse: though we speak the same language, our poetries are oddly discrete.

Paul Farley hears from two younger female American voices:

Tracy K Smith's book 'Life on Mars' won a Pulitzer Prize for her poems about space and race and David Bowie.

Patricia Lockwood's writing-life on Twitter is watched from around the world and her 'sexts' and her 'Rape Joke' poem brought her a celebrity very rare in poetry.

Both poets read from their groundbreaking books and share some new poems too.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Paul Farley hears new work from two young American poets.

Ts Eliot's India, Many Gods, Many Voices2013080420171203/04 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'TS Eliot's India - Many Gods

Daljit himself explores the often overlooked Indian element to TS Eliot's poetry.

TS Eliot once wrote that the great philosophers of India 'make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys'. And although he's more often remembered as an establishment figure, somewhat conservative and deeply Christian, Eliot also wrote about and studied Indian philosophy, language and culture. He incorporated it into his most famous poems, and even considered becoming a Buddhist.

Daljit Nagra grew up in Britain among both Christian and Indian Sikh traditions, became intrigued at school by Eliot's poem The Waste Land, which ends with the Sanskrit mantra 'Shantih, shantih, shantih'. How did these Indian words find their way into what is, on the face of it, a very western poem? And how does this imagery square with the idea of Eliot the bank clerk in a bowler hat, who converted to High Anglicanism?

Daljit discovers a deep, overlooked vein of Indic ideas in Eliot's poetry, right up until his masterpiece Four Quartets, including references to The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras and Buddhism. But was he merely perpetuating a romantic, exotic image of India, or was Eliot a truly global poet, who found a language to transcend the traditional divisions between eastern and western thought?

Featuring interviews with Eliot's nephew, the poets Jeet Thayil and Maitreyabandhu, Daljit uncovers the overlooked Indian imagery in Eliot's work and considers how far, as a poet steeped in Christian and classical traditions, he really understood it.

Producer: Jo Wheeler

A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast in 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra explores the often overlooked Indian element to TS Eliot's poetry.

Two Of A Kind, Poets In Partnership2024030320240304 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects a special collection of programmes across the month featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

The first of the programmes is Two Of A Kind - Poets In Partnership featuring both poets talking about their writing and domestic life together.

Produced by Jack Singleton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1961.

Daljit Nagra makes a selection of programmes featuring Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Daljit Nagra selects Two of a Kind featuring Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath talking about their writing life together. From January 1961.

Two Poets2019072820190729 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses ‘Two Poets' featuring Les Murray to commemorate the Australian writer who died in April 2019.

The poetry of Australian Les Murray opens up a new world for Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant for whom words are filled with colour and numbers have become friends.

 ?Belonging is something that other people decide for you, ? says the internationally acclaimed author Daniel Tammet, who is on the highly functional end of the autism spectrum.  ?I wanted desperately to belong when I was growing up. ?

This feature is about the power of poetry. And about seeing the world differently from everyone around you. In Daniel's world, four is shy, six a little sad. Numbers and words come easy to him. And he never forgets - once, he recited 22154 digits of Pi from memory. On another occasion, he learned Icelandic in a week.

We meet Daniel in Paris where he lives as an author, poet and translator. We hear about his early life in suburban London, about getting lost in his own mind while walking to school, trying to learn social skills as he would later learn a language. Then, one day, he stumbles across a book by the Australian poet Les Murray.

It transforms his life.

Les Murray's poetry gives him a language he understands. He recognises himself completely in Murray's words and sets about translating his poems into French. As a consequence, there's suddenly the possibility of the two poets meeting up, in person in Paris, when Les Murray asks Daniel to translate a poem about autism.

Presented and produced by Martin Johnson

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Daljit Nagra chooses 'Two Poets' from the BBC's poetry archive featuring Les Murray.

Ursula Vaughan Williams, Poet And Muse2017010120170102 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects a love story.

Ursula Vaughan Williams was most famous for being the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's second wife. However, she was a published poet who contributed poems for her husband to set and collaborated creatively on various occasions with him and other composers.

The writer Irma Kurtz tells her story and looks at her poetry with the help of the Vaughan Williams' friends and colleagues. She discovers a true love story. Ursula met Vaughan Williams when they were both married to other people. He was much older than her. Her husband died during the war and Ralph's wife spent much of her life in a wheel chair. Ursula became the lover and creative collaborator of the composer, even moving into his marital home with the blessing of his first wife. When Adeline Vaughan Williams died, Ralph and Ursula could be married.

Ursula's poetry speaks of love, nature and memory . Her masterpiece, The Dictated Theme was written in the days after Vaughan Williams died and she described the feeling that he was with her, dictating the verse.

Until her own death in 2007, aged 96, Ursula remained a leading figure on the artistic and social scene of London and continued her husband's work supporting English music.

Interviews include Michael Kennedy, biographer of Ralph Vaughan Williams; close friends Joyce Kennedy and Eva Hornstein; Stephen Connock, editor of Ursula Vaughan Williams' collected poems; and Hugh Cobbe, formerly Head of Music Collections for the British Library.

Readings by Isla Blair.

Producer: Laura Parfitt

A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2013.

Daljit Nagra chooses creative collaborator Ursula Vaughan Williams.

Walker Of The Downs2021032120210322 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Walker of the Downs featuring the Sussex Downs- the inspiration for the 1960s poet Ted Walker.

Martin Sorrell walks the Sussex Downs which, in the 1960s, provided nature poet Ted Walker with inspiration for some of his best work. He is joined by Mike Russell from the Sussex Wildlife Trust, who helps to evoke the essence of the land that Walker loved. Plus Patrick Romer reads a selection of Walker's poems.

Producer - Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2008.

Daljit Nagra chooses the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Walking With Whitman2009070520160327/28 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

Walking With Whitman' features the father of American Literature who blew away the cobwebs of dusty imitation.

The Lancashire Moors are the unlikely setting for a celebration of the acclaimed poet, Walt Whitman. Every year Whitman's devotees gather for the annual Whitman Walk, to recite his works and share from the loving cup. Stuart Maconie joins this happy band of walkers and Whitmanites to discover why the American, who never visited this northern mill town, is still celebrated around Bolton some 120 years later.

Producer: Russell Crewe

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2009.

Daljit Nagra introduces the father of American Literature, Walt Whitman.

Warsan Shire: Brave Girl Rising2021112820211129 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra selects 'Warsan Shire - Brave Girl Rising' inspired by Shire's long-distance friendship with Nasro, a young refugee living in a Kenyan camp. Warsan Shire has written and reads five poems about her and the experience of exile.

The much admired Somali/British poet has become the laureate of displaced persons - her own family fled Somalia when she was very young.

Warsan Shire's first collection of poetry, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, established her reputation. Her contribution of poems to Beyoncé's 2016 visual album Lemonade, made her internationally famous.

Warsan gives very few interviews so we are delighted to feature some of her thoughts about writing, visiting Somalia, her own family and what poetry can achieve.

The poems for Nasro were written to accompany a film, Brave Girl Rising, that highlights the plight of young women refugees and the vital importance for them of education.

Produced by Susan Marling

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

We Real Cool, The Poetry Of Gwendolyn Brooks2016050120160502 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'We Real Cool' - The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was an African American poet whose imagination, conscience and passion for words made her the first black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1950. Narrated by her daughter Nora Brooks Blakely, this is portrait features friends and fellow poets - including Sonia Sanchez and Haki Madhubuti.

Publishing her first poem at 13 - when she hit 16, Gwendolyn was publishing in newspapers serving Chicago's black population. Early critics welcomed her as 'a real poet writing poignant social documents.

Her poems are portraits of ordinary people she observed day-to-day. She moulded them into memorable characters like Annie Allen, Rudolph Reed and Satin Legs Smith. Her deepest compassion though was for young people, particularly struggling youth. Her most famous poem, We Real Cool, is about children skipping school - still spoken aloud today by children who learn it by heart.

Brooks believed she had a social and political role as a poet and became one of the most visible articulators of the 'black aesthetic' as the Black Arts Movement took off in the late 1960s. Her commitment to nurturing black literature led her to leave major publisher Harper & Row in favour of a fledgling black company. When she was appointed poet laureate of Illinois in 1968, she used her role to visit schools, prisons, and rehabilitation centres to help people 'see the poetry in their lives.' She always claimed her greatest achievement was teaching people that poetry isn't a formal activity but an art form within the reach of everybody.

Produced by Sarah Cuddon

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 from 2015.

The poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks with the voices of her friends and family.

We Will Arise And Go Now2020022320200224 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses We Will Arise and Go Now marking the birth of WB Yeats.

On the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats' birth, Irish Chair of Poetry Paula Meehan, selects three Irish poets who will arise and go with presenter Marie-Louise Muir to The Lake Isle of Innisfree in County Sligo, a location made famous by Yeats's iconic poem of the same name.

Elayne Harrington, aka 'Temper-Mental Miss-Elayneous' is a hip-hop poet and spoken word artist from Dublin; Stephen Sexton a PhD student at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in Belfast; Paula Cunningham was brought up in Omagh, County Tyrone, and works as a part-time dentist.

While Yeats's poem speaks of a desire to build 'a cabin of clay and wattles' on Innisfree, Marie-Louise and our three poets will be sleeping under canvas and cooking on a campfire. As they discover if the reality of this tiny uninhabited island on Lough Gill lives up to the bucolic idyll which Yeats so famously portrayed, they'll ask if 'peace comes dropping slow' in the 'bee loud glade' as they each reflect on how The Lake Isle of Innisfree resonates with them and come up with their own poetic responses to it.

Produced by Conor Garrett

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best riches from the BBC's poetry archive.

Welsh Ladies2021111420211115 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Welsh Ladies presented by poet Mab Jones.

Taking inspiration from her collection of vintage and antique 'Welsh lady' postcards, Mab Jones seeks out their stories, and tries to find out what they would say if they could, in a poetic tribute to them.

They sit, in traditional dress, in photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, looking uncomfortable in tall black hats and scratchy woollen shawls. Occasionally they're arranged around a harp. Usually they're in a domestic setting - silent, obedient, rooted to the spot. Mab wants to find out who these Welsh women of bygone ages were. What were their lives like? How did they think, and feel?

Finding out more about them isn't a straightforward task, because although the subject of wry greeting cards today, the voices of women in Wales of that era have largely been absent from its historiography. Could it be that they didn't really exist at all? The costume was partly invented during the romantic revival in Wales, at a time when the old rural ways were dying out. More decorous than practical, it was celebrated by tourists and visitors, and became an emblem of national identity.

But even if their ways of life have vanished, the female poetic voices of the pre-industrial era are still traceable. In seeking them out, Mab finds poems that speak of the experience and imagination of women through a rich heritage of folk traditions and ancient oral traditions, from anonymous old verses thought to have been written by women, to individual voices that are only now being recovered and translated into English.

Mab composes a poem to the picture postcard version of the Welsh Ladies, who for the camera seem to be inhabiting a life that was not theirs, bringing her warmth and wit to this attempt to bring them, and their forbears, back to life.

Producer: Megan Jones

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra chooses the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

What I Read To The Dead, Wladislaw Szlengel2013042120180624/25 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'What I Read to the Dead' with poetry by Wladislaw Szlengel.

In the last months and days of the Warsaw Ghetto, Wladislaw Szlenge's poetry was an urgent shout of defiance for himself and for those who recited his words and prepared to die.

Writer Eva Hoffman explores the extraordinary verse and his little known life. Before the war and the Nazi invasion of Poland, he'd written poetry in his native tongue and witty lyrics for popular tunes sung in the nightclubs of Warsaw. But confinement in the Warsaw Ghetto and its increasingly tragic circumstances changed Szlengel's work into urgent bulletins for both fellow Jews, trapped inside the walls of their prison city, and his former Polish neighbours.

Szlengel wrote until his last days which came with the discovery of their hiding place in April 1943.

People read aloud Szlengel's verses in their hiding places. In them they recognized not just their plight but their own humanity as family and friends continued to be deported. His poetry survived in versions committed to memory by a handful of survivors, in a small cache of poems kept safe and buried in a unique, secret archive and, decades later, in the form of a sheaf of pages found hidden inside a table marked for firewood.

'I am looking through and sorting the poems that were written to those who are no more. Read it. This is our history. This is what I read to the dead.'

Reader Elliot Levey

Producer Mark Burman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra introduces poetry by Wladislaw Szlengel.

What Sweetness Touched Your Tongue2021050220210503 (BBC7)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and selects 'What Sweetness Touched Your Tongue?' inspired by Edwardian recipes written by poet Alison Brackenbury's grandmother.

The poet Alison Brackenbury came across a black oilskin notebook that had belonged to her grandmother, Dorothy Eliza Barnes.

The notebook is full of her recipes, for 'Aunt Margaret's Pudding', 'Flamberries Pudding' and other steamed delights, but also bramble vinegar, pork pie filling, wines, even embrocation.

Dot, born in 1894, was a cook to an Edwardian family. Later she married a Lincolnshire shepherd, moving from one remote cottage to another. Her role, her life, was to sustain her family - and feed men.

Brackenbury was inspired to write a sequence of poems in response to the recipes.

In this programme we hear the poems and The Kitchen Cabinet's food historian, Dr Annie Gray, cooks, following the recipes. These dishes are very evocative of Dot's era and her life. Helped by notes in the family Bible, family reminiscence and her own memories of her grandmother (read by the actor Emma Hands), Brackenbury uncovers a life that was full, marked by losses, long and fascinating.

In the 1930s hungry itinerants came to the farm, looking for work, and Dot fed them. Dot kept cooking to the end, dying with her shelves well stocked. She once remarked to her grand-daughter that what they said about the summer before the Great War was true, it was unusually beautiful.

What Sweetness Touched Your Tongue' is a culinary biography, a radio sketch of an era - in verse. A century on Alison Brackenbury, maginatively establishes a relationship with her grandmother through the recipes and the poems they evoke.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

What The Donkey Saw: Ua Fanthorpe's Christmas Poems2017122420171225 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits BBC radio's poetry archive with 'What the Donkey Saw' - UA Fanthorpe's Christmas poems.

Starting in 1972, UA Fanthorpe wrote a Christmas poem every year. Sheila Hancock reads a selection, with an introduction by UA's partner, Rosie Bailey, who designed and printed the cards they sent.

Fanthorpe was witty, original, and she reworked the Christmas story from quirky angles. These were so popular with recipients that a collection was published.

Featuring some of those on this very special poetical Christmas card list, including Carol Ann Duffy, Lawrence Sail and Jackie Kay. For them receiving the poem was important - a funny but thoughtful beginning to Christmas.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2011.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects 'What the Donkey Saw' - UA Fanthorpe's Christmas poems.

Wild Geese2019070720190713 (R4)Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Wild Geese the story of what happened next when Mary Oliver's poem was sent to a man in prison.

A few years ago, a man committed a crime and spent time in prison. In this programme, a group of his friends explore the role a poem played in their collective story.

The poem is Wild Geese by the recently deceased American poet Mary Oliver.

Thanks to the On Being Project, the programme includes archive audio of Mary Oliver talking about her poem.

Contributors: Mike Chase, Marie-Claire, Angie Wootten, Chris Oates and Rosie Boulton.

Producer: Rosie Boulton

A Must Try Softer production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poems from the BBC's poetry archive.

Wild Geese20221204Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive and chooses Wild Geese - the story of what happened next when Mary Oliver's poem was sent to a man in prison.

A few years ago, a man committed a crime and spent time in prison. In this programme, a group of his friends explore the role a poem played in their collective story.

The poem is Wild Geese by the recently deceased American poet Mary Oliver.

Thanks to the On Being Project, the programme includes archive audio of Mary Oliver talking about her poem.

Contributors: Mike Chase, Marie-Claire, Angie Wootten, Chris Oates and Rosie Boulton.

Producer: Rosie Boulton

A Must Try Softer production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects the best poems from the BBC's poetry archive.

Winter Poems2019120820191209 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects Four Seasons: Winter - an anthology of seasonal poems originally broadcast on Winter Solstice 2016.

Memorable and much loved verse by Robert Burns, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Louis MacNeice and Walter De la Mare, read by Simon Russell Beale, Noma Dumezweni, Bill Paterson and Anton Lesser, join recent poems read by the poets, Kathleen Jamie, Liz Lochhead, Don Paterson, Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy. There is rain and snow and frost and a robin sings its winter song. And joining these is a new poem by Kayo Chingonyi remembering a teenage winter in Dagenham.

The poems, originally broadcast on Winter Solstice 2016 across the schedule on Radio 4, are gathered together and broadcast here in this compilation programme.

Up in the Morning Early by Robert Burns

Read by Bill Paterson

Extract from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage

Birds at Winter Nightfall

By Thomas Hardy

Read by Sinead Cusack

In the mid midwinter by Liz Lochhead

From new book published by BIRLINN

Rain by Don Paterson.

From Rain published by Faber and Faber

Now Winter Nights Enlarge

By Thomas Campion

Read by Juliet Stevenson

Snow by Carol Ann Duffy.

Was published in The Guardian 24/12/210.

A Robin by Walter de la Mare

Read by Noma Dumezweni

Perfect Day by Kathleen Jamie

from the Queen of Sheba published by Bloodaxe

Read by Kathleen Jamie

Snowman (also referred to as Winter Song) by Kayo Chingonyi

Read by Kayo Chingonyi

Specially commissioned

Snow by Louis MacNeice

From Collected Poems published by Faber and Faber

Read by Anton Lesser

The Twelve Months

By George Ellis

Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.

Poet Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

With Great Pleasure, Don Paterson2016012520160124 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

With Great Pleasure' from Summer 2006, when the Ledbury Poetry Festival featured Don Paterson as poet-in-residence. He entertained an audience at the festival with the work of some of his favourite fellow poets, including Douglas Dunn, Tony Harrison, Billy Collins, Seamus Heaney and William Topaz McGonagall.

Producer: Viv Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.

Daljit Nagra introduces 'With Great Pleasure' from the Summer 2006 Ledbury Poetry Festival

With Great Pleasure, Jo Shapcott2016013120160201 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'With Great Pleasure' from the 2003 Ledbury Poetry Festival, Jo Shapcott presents some of her literary favourites read for her by Christian Rodska and Mark Meadows.

Her choices range from medieval poem Piers Plowman to war poet Ivor Gurney via Galileo, Emily Dickinson and the ascent of Kilimanjaro.

Producer: Viv Beeby

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.

Poet Jo Shapcott's favourite literature read by Christian Rodska and Mark Meadows.

With Great Pleasure, Les Murray20160214BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'With Great Pleasure', Les Murray talks through a selection of his favourite poems and stories. Expect moon landings, U-boats, vespers songs and Doublemen in a beautiful and eclectic selection read by Sean Barrett and Sally Cookson.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Les Murray's pick of prose and poetry read by Sean Barrett and Sally Cookson.

With Great Pleasure, Les Murray20160215BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'With Great Pleasure', Les Murray talks through a selection of his favourite poems and stories. Expect moon landings, U-boats, vespers songs and Doublemen in a beautiful and eclectic selection read by Sean Barrett and Sally Cookson.

Producer: Sara Davies

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

Les Murray's pick of prose and poetry read by Sean Barrett and Sally Cookson.

With Great Pleasure, Sean O'brien2002010320160207/08 (BBC7)BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.

In 'With Great Pleasure' Sean O'Brien chooses some of his favourite pieces of prose and poetry read by Julia Watson and Deka Walmsley.

Sit back and enjoy a wander around bits of Charles Dickens, AS Byatt, Virgil, Elizabeth Bishop, Shelly and Blake. It's high class stuff from a high class poet.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

Sean O'Brien's pick of prose and poetry read by Julia Watson and Deka Walmsley.

Woods Beyond A Cornfield2019110320191104 (BBC7)Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Woods Beyond a Cornfield.

A beautiful, dark poem by Stanley Cook - a Yorkshireman - about events in the edgelands where he grew up. It evokes the translucent beauty of South Yorkshire and its harshness - especially the inhabitants' hard working lives. Threaded through it is the murder of a local girl who, 'lost for something to do', plays truant one day, only to be killed by a local man.

Cook couldn't abide poverty being romanticised. He cared about people who suffered hardship and returned home from his Oxford scholarship with clear-sighted passion. He has influenced Yorkshire writers including his publisher, Peter Sansom of the Poetry Business in Sheffield, who was mentored and taught by Cook.

Liz White, Richard Stacey, Ruby-May Martinwood and the folk musician and political activist, Ray Hearne, read Stanley Cook's heartfelt poem - with a soundtrack recorded in South Yorkshire through the Autumn.

Producer: Frances Byrnes

A Rockethouse production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

A poem by Stanley Cook - a girl's murder and a bruised and beautiful landscape.

04Zaffar Kunial2017042320190113/14 (BBC7)
Paul Farley hears new poems by Zaffar Kunial in the places they were made.