The Keepnet Verb - Experiments in Living

Ian McMillan is joined by Anita Sethi, Kate Fox, Ira Lightman, and Tom Chatfield to explore the language of time, listening and uncertainty and to celebrate the most compelling ideas that have been gathered into the Verb's 'keepnet' over the last year. This is the final summit of our 'Experiments in Living' season, before we reveal our writing manifesto in the autumn.

Writer and journalist Anita Sethi reads from her book 'I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain' , the story of how a race-hate crime on a train led her to undertake a series of journeys through northern landscapes. Anita discusses the importance of thinking about deep time and the natural world, and listening as an act of restoration.

Technology philosopher Tom Chatfield's new book is called 'How to Think' and it touches on many of the themes that have been surfacing and resurfacing on The Verb over the last year, including 'uncertainty' and the way language can help us think clearly about technology and ecology.

Our regular Verb guests, the poets Ira Lightman and Kate Fox also join us for the season's coda programme. Kate shares a new collage poem which contains the words spoken by our guests at 20 minutes and 21 seconds within each of our Verb recordings - to see what it might reveal about the thinking of our guests in this challenging year. Ira helps us think about language and time and reads a brand new commission for The Verb which we hope will help us futureproof our manifesto.