The Essay

Novelist Andrew Martin considers attitudes that no longer seem so vital in the modern world. And he continues his series with lamenting the loss of 'not eating too much'..Producer Duncan MinshullFirst broadcast in January 2014.

Novelist Andrew Martin considers attitudes that no longer seem so vital in the modern world. And he begins his series with a lament for a loss of modesty, or 'not boasting'. Producer Duncan MinshullFirst broadcast in January 2014.

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, five leading poets write a personal letter to a young poet. Today, award-winning Scottish poet and editor, Don Paterson.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. Kappus was trying to choose between a literary career and entering the Austro-Hungarian army. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality:"If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place."In their new letters, five poets imagine a young poet protégé to whom they want to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art.Our poets are: Michael Symmons Roberts, Vicki Feaver, Michael Longley, Moniza Alvi and Don Paterson.Don Paterson was born in 1963 in Dundee, Scotland. He moved to London in 1984 to work as a jazz musician, and began writing poetry around the same time. His collections of poetry are Nil Nil (Faber, 1993), God's Gift to Women (Faber, 1997), The Eyes (after Antonio Machado, Faber, 1999), Landing Light (Faber, 2003; Graywolf, 2004), Orpheus (a version of Rilke's Die Sonette an Orpheus, Faber, 2006) and Rain (Faber, 2009; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010).First broadcast in January 2014.

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, five leading poets write a personal letter to a young poet. 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. Kappus was trying to choose between a literary career and entering the Austro-Hungarian army. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality:"If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place."In their new letters, five poets imagine a young poet protégé to whom they want to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art.Our poets are: Michael Symmons Roberts, Vicki Feaver, Michael Longley, Moniza Alvi and Don Paterson.About Moniza Alvi: Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. Her latest book are At the Time of Partition (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) which is shortlisted for the 2013 T S Eliot Prize. Other recent books include her book-length poem; Homesick for the Earth, her versions of the French poet Jules Supervielle (Bloodaxe Books, 2011); Europa (Bloodaxe Books, 2008); and Split World: Poems 1990-2005 (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), which includes poems from her five previous collections.

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, five leading poets write a personal letter to a young poet. Today, eminent Belfast poet, Michael Longley.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. Kappus was trying to choose between a literary career and entering the Austro-Hungarian army. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality:"If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place."In their new letters, five poets imagine a young poet protégé to whom they want to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art.Our poets are: Michael Symmons Roberts, Vicki Feaver, Michael Longley, Moniza Alvi and Don Paterson.About Michael Longley: Michael Longley was born in Belfast in 1939. His Collected Poems was published in 2006 and in 2007, he was appointed Professor of Poetry for Ireland. His most recent poetry collections are Gorse Fires (2009) and A Hundred Doors (2011), shortlisted for the 2011 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).First broadcast in January 2014.

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, five leading poets write a personal letter to a young protégé. Today, to coincide with the announcement of the T S Eliot Prize, one of the prize's judges, Vicki Feaver, writes a letter to a young woman poet.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. Kappus was trying to choose between a literary career and entering the Austro-Hungarian army. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality:"If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place."In their new letters, five poets imagine a young poet protégé to whom they want to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art.Our poets are: Michael Symmons Roberts, Vicki Feaver, Michael Longley, Moniza Alvi and Don Paterson.About Vicki Feaver: Vicki Feaver has published three collections of poetry, Close Relatives (Secker 1981), The Handless Maiden (Cape 1994) and The Book of Blood (Cape 2006), both short-listed for the Forward Prize Best Collection, with The Book of Blood also shortlisted for the 2006 Costa (formerly Whitbread) Poetry Book Award. Her poem 'Judith' won the Forward Prize for the Best Single Poem. She lives in Scotland.

Taking Rilke's classic correspondence as inspiration, five leading poets write a personal letter to a young poet. Today, to coincide with the announcement of the T S Eliot Prize, shortlisted poet Michael Symmons Roberts writes a letter about poetry that dares the depths.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. Kappus was trying to choose between a literary career and entering the Austro-Hungarian army. Rilke's letters touch on poetry and criticism, but they range widely in subject matter from atheism and loneliness, to friendship and sexuality:"If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; for there is no lack for him who creates and no poor, trivial place."In their new letters, five poets imagine a young poet protégé to whom they want to pass on life experience and thoughts about the poetic art.Our poets are: Michael Symmons Roberts, Vicki Feaver, Michael Longley, Moniza Alvi and Don Paterson.About Michael Symmons Roberts: Roberts's latest collection Drysalter (Cape 2013) won the 2013 Forward Prize and is on the shortlist for both the T S Eliot Prize and the Costa Poetry Award. He is a leading poet, librettist, novelist, radio dramatist and broadcaster. Previous collections include The Half-Healed, Corpus and Burning Babylon.First broadcast in January 2014.

Stepping back in time, BBC News correspondents present a personal perspective on principal cities of the major European powers that fought the First World War. In this Essay, Emma Jane Kirby considers the capital of the largest contemporary modern maritime empire: London.To today's listeners some of Londoners' concerns a century ago will seem extraordinarily familiar. Complaints about the Tube were as frequent and heartfelt then as they are today. To try and divert travellers from their misery, Macdonald Gill - the brother of sculptor and designer Eric Gill - was commissioned to produce a "Wonderground" map. It was intended to amuse them as they waited for their trains which were infrequent, often dirty and overcrowded.The map's whimsical illustrations - together with Cockney asides put in the mouths of some of the invented characters - captured the city's above-ground, pre-war character. It evoked the zeitgeist which George Bernard Shaw simultaneously reflected on stage in "Pygmalion" - and led to a subsequent commission to design a theatreland map during the First World War.Emma Jane Kirby considers the idea of Britain which London was presenting to both the wider world and Britons themselves, and she assesses how far these attitudes still resonate today.Producer Simon Coates.

Stepping back in time, BBC News correspondents present their personal perspectives on the capital cities of major European powers that fought the Great War.The series continues with the remarkable city which would - uniquely - soon be renamed amidst bloody regicide and revolution: St Petersburg.The BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, finds a revealing connection, however, between the St. Petersburg of a hundred years ago and its counterpart of today.He tells the remarkable story of the Grand International Masters' Chess Tournament of 1914, with its starring cast of Russian, German, French, British and American competitors and its dramas of who won and who lost.But the tournament also demonstrated the Russian passion for chess that continues to this day and helps define its national identity as well as the fierce competition with other countries.Producer Simon Coates.

Stepping back in time, three BBC News correspondents present their personal perspectives on the capital cities of the major European powers that fought the Great War.The first programme explores the epicentre of turmoil as the conflagration took hold: Berlin, the capital of Kaiser Wilhelm II's empire. Stephen Evans reminds us that the German capital on the eve of war was the world's most innovative technological centre. Einstein was here, the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics from 1914. Mark Twain called Berlin the "German Chicago" because of its dizzying sense of modernity and progress. Immigrants were sucked in by industry. In 1895, 20,000 Berliners worked in the factories being built on the outskirts of the city, living cheek-by-jowl in new blocks which became known as "rental barracks".But all this industrial energy and the wealth it created - which we still associate with today's Germany - came at a price. Both male and female workers felt alienated in their work, likening themselves to machines. As women grew in importance to the economy, so did the loudness of the criticism of their alleged neglect of traditional home virtues. The image of Germany united in war that was to be orchestrated later in the year was already belied by the reality of daily life in the capital itself.Producer Simon Coates.