Ian McMillan and his guests explore the ‘language’ of light this Christmas. He’s joined by Baroness Floella Benjamin, who tells the story of leaving Trinidadian sunshine for the very different light in the south of England; one of our best-loved lexicographers, Susie Dent lets us into the vocabulary of light; poetry legend John Cooper Clarke talks about the leading lights of his childhood, and the glow of an extraordinary cocktail cabinet; and Ian rejoices in the glow of the screens that have co...
Dec 18, 2020•47 min
This week Ian McMillan dives into the word 'Brazil' and 'Brazilian', discovering irony, fusion and confusion, and the astonishing ability of one of its most famous novelists, Clarice Lispector, to dilate time. He also translates a Brazilian poem into Yorkshire dialect to see what happens to the tone. Toby Litt The novelist Toby Litt has become fascinated by the novels of Clarice Lispector, and responds with his own fiction in this, her centenary year. Lispector was born in Ukraine but spent much...
Dec 11, 2020•44 min
What might a zero-growth world mean for writers? The Verb offers this provocation to this week's guests, and asks how poets in particular can adjust to a world economy that's changing rapidly under long-down. Is there such a thing as a sustainable poem? Ian McMillan is joined by: Yanis Varoufakis, economist, author and member of the Greek Parliament, Dr Seren Griffiths, an archaeologist and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker (fascinated by time and the taxonomy of soil), by novelist and poet Patrick...
Nov 27, 2020•44 min
In a special extended conversation with Ian McMillan, the travel writer Jan Morris looks back over a career in writing that has spanned seven decades and explains what it is that keeps her returning to her writing desk every day at the age of 91. Jan Morris has just published 'Battleship Yamato: Of War, Beauty and Irony' (Pallas Athene) - it's the story of a ship that has always fascinated her, but, as she tells Ian, more importantly it is a portrait of the ship as an allegory for war itself. Ja...
Nov 20, 2020•44 min
The Verb on 'green' memoir - with the actor and writer Gabriel Byrne, and the poets Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Pascale Petit. What would our stories sound like if we told them through our relationships with the plants, animals and landscapes that are most dear to us? What happens when we start to see the natural world as an integral part of our own histories? Gabriel Byrne is an award-winning actor and writer. His new memoir 'Walking with Ghosts' starts emphatically and lyrically with the landsc...
Nov 13, 2020•44 min
Are you what you eat? The way we talk and think about food has changed a lot in recent years, particularly when it comes to the idea of eating ethically and the concept of veganism. Once a punchline, it's now a multi-million pound industry. What do the words we use to talk about food tell us about the underlying moral issues? Why is food so tied up with shame? Can we find the language to become 'good enough' eaters? Joining Ian to talk about the language of food from 'clean' to 'dirty' are Benja...
Nov 06, 2020•45 min
This week Ian McMillan and guests are turning to humour to help us get through difficult times. If 'comedy equals tragedy plus time' - how much time do we need to make something funny? Or is it more dangerous to leave a topic too long, and risk your audience moving on? Because in comedy, timing is everything... Joining Ian are Ben Schott, the author of two novels set in the Jeeves and Wooster universe on why so many people have turned to P.G Wodehouse during lockdown, comedian Grainne Maguire on...
Oct 30, 2020•44 min
Ian McMillan introduces new poetry that takes its cue from the limestone, fossils and concrete of the walls of London's Southbank Centre, in a celebration of all kinds of poetry walls, real and digital. His guests are the poets Chris McCabe, Anthony Anaxagorou, Joelle Taylor and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa. Chris McCabe is a poet and the joint librarian of the National Poetry Library (based at the Southbank Centre). He performs a new commission for The Verb - inspired by the fossils ('scavengers and...
Oct 23, 2020•44 min
Ian McMillan and guests look at the way poets have written about oil and the oil industry.
Oct 16, 2020•48 min
The Verb explores the art of conversation with Claudia Rankine, one of America's most innovative poets. She has just published her sixth poetry book 'Just Us' a work that combines poetry, poetic prose, images and marginalia, allowing them to speak with, to, and across each other. At a time when political conversation in the USA has been criticised for having too much heat and not enough light, Claudia Rankine explores how a poet's ability to navigate silences, stutters, and the endings of poems,...
Oct 09, 2020•44 min
This year the Contains Strong Language Festival of poetry and spoken word goes to Cumbria, as part of the programme of events marking the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth's birth. This week's Verb was recorded at the Forum Theatre in Barrow-in-Furness, with a small, but enthusiastic socially distanced audience. Our theme is the meeting of language and landscape, and Ian's guests are the poet Clare Shaw whose 2018 collection Flood conveys water at its most awesome and destructive, writer a...
Oct 02, 2020•45 min
The Verb celebrates 250 years since Wordsworth's birth. Ian McMillan is joined by poets Hussain Manawer, Luke Wright, Kim Moore, and Helen Mort - part of the Contains Strong Language Festival and recorded at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, Which ideas from Wordsworth's 'Preface to the Lyrical Ballads' appeal most to our guests? Ian finds out and hears brand new poetry.
Sep 25, 2020•45 min
Do extraordinary times call for extraordinary kinds of writing and attention? Is it time to recalibrate, as William Wordsworth did in the middle of a revolutionary age, with his ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ ( his poetic manifesto with ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity' at its heart’)? Join The Verb each week for ‘experiments in living’ and experiments in language, as we build a new writing manifesto with the help of all our guests. The first experiment is in nature poetry, and this week I...
Sep 18, 2020•45 min
Ian McMillan talks to Salman Rushdie about writing ‘cancel culture’ into his latest novel ‘Quichotte’, putting the realism into magic realism, the craft of an opening sentence, the appeal of Latin hymns, the genius of PG Wodehouse – and the resonance throughout his work of the classic film ‘The Wizard of Oz’. To close the Verb season, Dr Jason Allen- Paisant reads his poem 'A Sound From The Throat of God', written after the killing of George Floyd. Allen-Paisant's work has been published in Call...
Jul 17, 2020•52 min
Ian McMillan is joined by former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey, the poet Louise Fazackerley, linguist Deborah Cameron and singer Kathryn Williams to explore the language that feeds into domestic violence, and the images, myths and fairy stories that can help us cope with it, and prevent it. Natasha Trethewey Natasha is a former US poet Laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner. She brings tenderness, compassion, and forensic attention to language in her new memoir ‘Memo...
Jul 10, 2020•45 min
This week we celebrate the spirit of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. With a distinctly international programme, Ledbury is one of the best-loved events in the UK literary calendar. The festival has been, like many events, sadly cancelled this year. Ian McMillan is joined by Sandeep Parmar of the Ledbury Festival Board and just a few of the poets who would have appeared at the 2020 event; Carolyn Forché, Kaveh Akbar and Juana Adcock. As part of the festival programme, Carolyn Forché was going to be ...
Jul 03, 2020•49 min
An eight-tentacled look at the world of the cephalopod, and the way these intelligent sea creatures inspire writers and performers. Peter Godfrey Smith is the author of ‘Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness’. The book has become a cult classic, introducing many people to the remarkable intelligence of the octopus and other cepahalopods, and asking questions about what the evolution of that intelligence might mean for humans. Peter shares his experience of an i...
Jun 19, 2020•49 min
This week's Verb looks at writing from the Caribbean diaspora. The poet Roger Robinson won the T.S. Eliot award and the Ondaatje prize for his collection 'A Portable Paradise' (Peepal Tree). Roger explains how the title poem, with it's theme of finding paradise inside yourself, has been taken to heart by many in the age of Covid-19. Ingrid Persaud won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018, and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017, and Love After Love (Faber) is her debut novel. Set in...
Jun 12, 2020•47 min
A few months ago, writing an email to a colleague that starts 'I hope you are safe in these extraordinary times' would have been an unusual thing to do, but it very quickly became 'the new normal'. This week Ian McMillan and guests look at the many ways in which our language has adapted to fit our our new routines, from Zooming with friends to socially distancing in supermarkets. Rob Drummond, The Verb's resident linguist has been keeping an ear out for the neologisms of our time, and Kate Clanc...
Jun 05, 2020•49 min
Since her first collection, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 1996, Alice Oswald has been a major voice in UK poetry, with collections that frequently examine the natural world. In 2002 she won the T.S. Eliot Prize for 'Dart', a book-length poem telling the story of Devon's River Dart. Her latest collection, 'Nobody', is inspired by The Odyssey. Fiona Sampson has just published a new of poetry 'Come Down', which is situated in two contrasting la...
May 29, 2020•44 min
Our annual trip to the BBC Tent at the Hay Festival is one of the highlights of the Verb calendar. This week Ian McMillan is joined by just a few of the fantastic writers who are keeping the spirit of the festival alive with Digital Hay Festival, which runs until the 31st May 2020. Ian's guests are Inua Ellams, who will be performing from his show 'An Evening with An Immigrant', a personal story - and updating it to reflect impact of the global pandemic. James Shapiro discusses his latest book '...
May 22, 2020•44 min
How have humans interpreted and been inspired by birdsong? Ian is joined by musician and song collector Sam Lee, who discusses the magic that happens on his annual Singing with Nightingale walks, TS Eliot award winning poet Jen Hadfield on the birds of her beloved Shetland and Richard Smyth, author of 'A Sweet Wild Note' reminds us that birdsong really has very little to do with music. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright
May 15, 2020•54 min
This week The Verb is considering language, reflection and mirrors. There's a brand new commission from our palindromic poet regular Ira Lightman and joining us from San Francisco is Rebecca Solnit on her new memoir 'Recollections of my non-existence' (Granta) Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright
Apr 24, 2020•45 min
Ian McMillan is joined by guests Alan Titchmarsh and Patience Agbabi and there's the first in a brand new series of Verb Dramas. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright
Apr 17, 2020•45 min
This week, Ian McMillan is joined from a distance by his guests, who are all in their own homes. Together they discuss the changing language we are all using as we try to keep friendships alive whilst isolating. There's a brand new poem from Kate Fox, advice from someone used to working alone from A.L Kennedy, John Carey takes us through some poetry that might hold solace for us, Caroline Bird reads a poem that is helping her, and Boo Hewerdine performs a song commissioned especially for The Ver...
Apr 10, 2020•45 min
Ian McMillan explores African writing with Maaza Mengiste, Ekow Eshun, Jennifer Makumbi and Ellah Wakatama. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright
Apr 03, 2020•50 min
This week, the late-night language lock-in is feeling uncertain with Shaun Usher, Jo Neary and Jude Rogers.
Mar 28, 2020•45 min
When the world changes suddenly - how do we know what to abandon and what to keep? William Gibson, Don Paterson, Caro C, and Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún explore the writing of obsolescence with Ian McMillan. The iconic 1960s television series 'The Twilight Zone' is replete with sudden ruptures to daily life -Don Paterson explains how he used the series to write poems that explore our relationship with obsolescence. Sound artist and composer Caro C shares a new commission for The Verb, the novelist famed for ...
Mar 21, 2020•43 min
Ian McMillan asks where poetry and philosophy meet - with guests Raymond Antrobus and Helen Mort.
Mar 06, 2020•50 min
Ian McMillan explores the language of leaving, resettling and exile with songwriter Ana Silvera and poets John McAuliffe, Igor Klikovac, Mina Gorji, and André Naffis-Sahely.
Feb 28, 2020•47 min
