The Essay

Decluttering is all the rage, as many of us are weighed down by stuff. Joanna Robertson lives in Paris, where apartments are small. So how do they go about getting rid of their clutter? Or do they? In a previous series for The Essay, Joanna took us to some of the international cities she's lived in and told us the Shopping News. Now, she takes on the consequences. Stuff Happens - not just to shopaholics but to all of us. It's the seemingly inescapable curse of 21st century consumerism - however hard we try to resist. In this edition, Joanna finds out about Parisians' solutions for having too much stuff - and they aren't what you might think. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Why is it so hard to get rid of stuff? Why does it have such a hold on us, yet get us down? In a previous series for The Essay, Joanna Robertson took us to some of the international cities she's lived in and told us the Shopping News. Now, she takes on the consequences. Stuff Happens - not just to shopaholics but to all of us. It's the seemingly inescapable curse of 21st century consumerism - however hard we try to declutter and resist. In this edition, Joanna Robertson aims for a tidy home, and its reward, a tidy mind. Easier said than done - except on one occasion, when she managed quite a coup. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Why does stuff have such an emotional hold on us? Why can't we just let it go?In a previous series for The Essay, Joanna Robertson took us to some of the international cities she's lived in and told us the Shopping News. Now, she takes on the consequences. Stuff Happens - not just to shopaholics but to all of us. It's the seemingly inescapable curse of 21st century consumerism - however hard we try to declutter and resist. In this edition, Joanna Robertson relives some of her frequent house moves in Europe. Once, when relocating from Rome to Berlin, Joanna and her stuff got perilously stuck in the snowbound Alps, in almost the same spot as Hannibal and his elephants over two millennia earlier. Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing five poems he wishes he had written. Tonight, Robert Frost's poem 'Design'.DesignI found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written. Tonight, Sylvia Plath's poem 'Cut'.Cut For Susan O'Neill RoeWhat a thrill - My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of a hingeOf skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush.Little pilgrim, The Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rollsStraight from the heart. I step on it, Clutching my bottle Of pink fizz.A celebration, this is. Out of a gap A million soldiers run, Redcoats, every one.Whose side are they on? 0 my Homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to killThe thin Papery feeling. Saboteur, Kamikaze manThe stain on your Gauze Ku Klux Klan Babushka Darkens and tarnishes and whenThe balled Pulp of your heart Confronts its small Mill of silenceHow you jump - Trepanned veteran, Dirty girl, Thumb stump.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written. Tonight, Elizabeth Bishop's 'Large Bad Picture'.Large Bad Picture Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or some northerly harbor of Labrador, before he became a schoolteacher a great-uncle painted a big picture.Receding for miles on either side into a flushed, still sky are overhanging pale blue cliffs hundreds of feet high,their bases fretted by little arches, the entrances to caves running in along the level of a bay masked by perfect waves.On the middle of that quiet floor sits a fleet of small black ships, square-rigged, sails furled, motionless, their spars like burnt match-sticks.And high above them, over the tall cliffs' semi-translucent ranks, are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds hanging in n's in banks.One can hear their crying, crying, the only sound there is except for occasional sighing as a large aquatic animal breathes.In the pink light the small red sun goes rolling, rolling, round and round and round at the same height in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,while the ships consider it. Apparently they have reached their destination. It would be hard to say what brought them there, commerce or contemplation.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written. Tonight, Michael Donaghy 'The Hunter's Purse'.The Hunter's Purseis the last unshattered 78 by 'Patrolman Jack O'Ryan, violin', a Sligo fiddler in dry America.A legend, he played Manhattan's ceilidhs, fell asleep drunk one snowy Christmas on a Central Park bench and froze solid. They shipped his corpse home, like his records.This record's record is its lunar surface. I wouldn't risk my stylus to this gouge, or this crater left by a flick of ash -When Anne Quinn got hold of it back in Kilrush, she took her fiddle to her shoulder and cranked the new Horn of Plenty Victrola over and over and over, and scratched along until she had it right or until her father shouted'We'll have no more Of that tune In this house tonight'.She slipped out back and strapped the contraption to the parcel rack and rode her bike to a far field, by moonlight.It skips. The penny I used for ballast slips. O'Ryan's fiddle pops, and hiccoughs back to this, back to this, back to this: a napping snowman with a fiddlecase; a flask of bootleg under his belt; three stars; a gramophone on a pushbike; a cigarette's glow from a far field; over and over, three bars in common time.

Don Paterson is an award-winning poet, editor and teacher, but for all his technical ability and the recognition that has been paid to his work Paterson is acutely aware of awe and sometimes envy when he looks at the work of other writers. Here he applies his wit and skills of technical analysis to discussing the five poems he wishes he had written. Tonight, Seamus Heaney's 'The Underground' .The UndergroundThere we were in the vaulted tunnel running, You in your going-away coat speeding ahead And me, me then like a fleet god gaining Upon you before you turned to a reedOr some new white flower japped with crimson As the coat flapped wild and button after button Sprang off and fell in a trail Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms, Our echoes die in that corridor and now I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones Retracing the path back, lifting the buttonsTo end up in a draughty lamplit station After the trains have gone, the wet track Bared and tensed as I am, all attention For your step following and damned if I look back.from Station Island (Faber, 1984), copyright (c) Seamus Heaney 1984,.

Since August 1947 the events surrounding Partition have been a staple of art, music, drama and fiction. Writer and spiritual teacher John Siddique draws on his Indian and Irish roots as he reflects on what Partition means to him. He reflects on the 70-year cultural legacy, identifying patterns and drawing lessons from literature, film and poetry. As the British withdrew after 300 years the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. It prompted one of the greatest migrations in human history. Ten million people were displaced as Muslims trekked to West Pakistan and East Pakistan (modern day Bangladesh), while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. The resulting carnage saw massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions, and savage sexual violence. It is estimated that in excess of a million people died and 75,000 women were raped, many of whom were then disfigured or dismembered.John ​says he found suffering, but also beauty, in the short stories of Saadat Hassan Manto. And he ​recommends Deepa Mehta's film, Earth, based on the novel Ice Candy Man, ​for its unflinching and human portrayal of events.Produced by Matt Willis at 7digital.

A heartfelt meditation on the (in)visibilty of gay women. Writer and theatremaker Stella Duffy describes growing up lesbian in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s and considers what the 40 year expatriate 'marriage' of novelist, poet and playwright Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, author of The Alice B Toklas Cookbook, means to her. 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: Stella Duffy Reader: Stella Duffy Producer: Simon Richardson.