The Essay

In his essay, Paradoxopolis, Ian Duhig is inspired by a painting by 'Leeds’s Lost Modernist', the reclusive Joash Woodrow, and the former local synagogue, now the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, both sited on the road north out of Leeds, built by Blind Jack Metcalf, iconic Leeds roadmaker of the Victorian era. Ian says: "When I first moved here about 50 years ago, Leeds was still advertising itself as The Motorway City of the Seventies and as much as its natural resources of clay and coal, its central location between London and Scotland. and England’s east and west coasts, was a major influence on its development. Immigrants, itinerant labour and roadmakers have built this city and its economy, something I propose to show by inviting you all to join me now on a virtual poetic journey through it on one road, Blind Jack Metcalf’s due north where we will come to understand something of that extraordinary civil engineer and what Virginia Woolf meant when she once wrote in a TLS review: “Personally, we should be willing to read one volume about every street in the city, and should still ask for more”.The essay touches on the many different populations that have lived and still live in Leeds - Jewish, Irish, Caribbean, Indian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and their rich cultural manifestations. Ian Duhig became a full-time writer after working with homeless people for fifteen years. He has published eight collections of poetry, held several fellowships including at Trinity College Dublin, won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted four times for the T.S. Eliot Prize. His New and Selected Poems was awarded the 2022 Hawthornden Prize for Literature. He is currently finishing his next book of poetry, ‘An Arbitrary Light Bulb’, due from Picador in 2024.Writer/reader, Ian Duhig Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly ThomasLooking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.

In her essay, Both Arms, Michelle Scally Clarke writes about the statue of that name by William Kenneth Armitage CBE, a Leeds sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes.  It is a powerful public image of compassion, support and welcome, created as a monument to friendship. It resonates for Michelle about her own life journey as a mixed race care leaver who was welcomed and held by Leeds as a child and now an adult. ‘Both Arms” also holds great pride and nostalgia for Michelle, a visual symbol of Leeds as a city of hope for now and the future. Her essay explores Leeds as a city of welcome in multiple contexts - adoption and adaptation; migrants and refugees; traders and artists; students; and Nelson Mandela’s iconic visit to the city in the 1990s. Michelle Scally Clarke is a writer and performer of drama, creative writing, and poetry. Work includes BBC Contains Strong Language 2023, Space2 2016 performance and workshop focusing on mental health ‘Suitcase’, 2018 cross-cultural play ‘Jeans, Whose Genes?’ and now peer-led Clear Out Your Closer poetry group, focusing on writing for wellbeing.Writer/reader, Michelle Scally Clarke Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly ThomasLooking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.

The world of magic and enchantment that Jeremy Dyson remembers from the Leeds of his childhood are epitomised by the three intricately carved clocks with life size human figures that still keep time in the Edwardian and Victorian shopping arcades in the city centre, now hemmed in by shopping malls and fast food outlets. From discussing the three clocks, he takes us back to the Victorian architectural splendour and status of the city, with its bronze and stone carved animals in Leeds Central Library and a plea to remember the value of spending money on public art.Jeremy Dyson is the co-creator and co-writer of the multi-award winning comedy show The League of Gentlemen, the BAFTA-nominated comedy drama Funland and the Rose-d’or winning all female sketch show Psychobitches. His play Ghost Stories, co-written with Andy Nyman was nominated for an Olivier award);Writer/reader, Jeremy Dyson Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly ThomasLooking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.

The city of Leeds seen through public art past, present and future. In this edition, Malika Booker considers an architectural sculptural frieze located on Abtech House, 18 Park Row, Leeds (formerly West Riding Union Buildings) created in 1900 by the stonemason and sculptor Joseph Thewlis. The sculpture depicts emblematic figures related to Leeds commerce at the time, linked to the abundance of textile industry and mills in Yorkshire and Leeds. As a member of the Caribbean community living in Chapeltown, she is particularly interested in the Minerva Goddess presiding over these figures, as well as the figures depicting the bank's relationship with empire. She is caught by the multicultural portrayal of figures representing different aspects of Industry and the world, but of particular interest is the depiction of an enslaved African figure lifting and bending over bales of cotton. This lyrically poetic essay considers the changing visual, political, social and environmental changes that the sculptural frieze has witnessed and the ways in which the world has moved away from this depiction of black bodies. Malika is and international writer, double winner of Forward Prize for Poetry and Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at University of Leeds.Writer/reader, Malika Booker Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly ThomasContains some historical racial terminology. Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.

In this podcast, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky shares personal essays about his birth city of Odesa, discussing fatherland, memory, Deafness, and exile. He reflects on invasion, war, oppression, and the poets of Odesa. In the final essay, Ilya visits a Jewish cemetery, contemplating nation, language, and home. The podcast explores experiences during an air raid, the language problem in Ukraine, and corruption within the government. It also delves into a visit to a cemetery, discussing absence and literary devices in writing.

"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through."Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great.In his fourth essay, he tells the story of a visit to Ukraine during the early months of the 2022 invasion: "At the border, an endless line of cars. Between them weave women wheeling bulky suitcases, children following behind, dragging their stuffed toys which look both curious and afraid. Grannies in wheelchairs sit at the side of the road, drowsing off as soldiers check their papers. Two women spread their breakfast on the hood of a parked Zhiguli. The line is going so slowly I can see what they are eating—brinza cheese, bread, cups of coffee, and hard-boiled eggs. Next to them, a couple of stray cats begging. They’re everywhere: atop anti-tank fortifications, under the bushes, in the arms of the children. Pretty soon, we’re motioned forward, but the women and the cats remain behind us. Perhaps they’re still waiting."Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the authorProducer: Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio Assistant Producer: Melanie Pearson Mixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann

Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.Kenneth Steven recounts the story of American bison introduced in Victorian times to Scotland by William Stewart. ‘They were enclosed in a paddock with a circumference of five or six miles, but had become completely tame – they were however healthy and with an addition of two calves.’ Those buffalo were obviously still there when Queen Victoria and Albert famously came to visit Taymouth Castle in 1842 for she makes mention of them too: ‘We saw part of Loch Tay and drove along the banks of the Tay under fine trees and saw Lord Breadalbane’s American buffaloes’. What we’re actually talking about here are American bison, very different from the buffalo that live in Africa and Asia. American bison live only in North America. It may be that early French fur trappers inadvertently coined the name buffalo when they used the French word ‘boeufs’ for these huge animals because they resembled giant oxen. Over time ‘boeufs’ became ‘buffalo’. Confusing, too, because the word that William Stewart and everyone else at that time would have used to describe them was buffalo. Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3

Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that at one time beavers were distributed widely throughout mainland Scotland. That would seem no great surprise, given the wealth of rivers and lochs in the country, and when you think how much native woodland was present in earlier centuries. But it would seem that by the 12th Century beavers were growing rare in Scotland; a record suggests they were to be found in just one river, though it’s impossible to know how reliable that record was. The last time we hear of them is in the 1526 ‘Cronikils of Scotland’ where beavers are mentioned as being abundant in the Loch Ness area. At some point after that they’re reckoned to have died out. In 2009, beavers were re-introduced into the Knapdale forest, Argyll, in the west of Scotland. Sixteen beavers from Norway were released during the first year and a further family the next. More than four hundred years after they were pushed to extinction, there are again wild beavers in the country. Now they have been reaffirmed as a native species and afforded protection.Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark RIckardsA Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3

Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.Kenneth Steven explores his visit to an island in the largest of freshwater lakes, Loch Lomond. There was nothing; possibly the soft murmur of birdsong, but precious little more than that. I walked on until I must have been about the middle of the island and then I stopped again, looked around me. And all at once, to my amazement and my great joy, were exactly what I had come to find, and the last thing in the world you would ever imagine: wallabies. There were perhaps half a dozen with me in the glade, and they were watching me. They were standing upright and probably they’d have come up to the height of my thighs: somehow akin to giant rabbits; furry-faced and doe-eyed. And as I stood there watching them one or two bounced about between the growing patches of sunlight. And now I knew at last I had proved the story true after all: there were indeed wallabies on the island of Inchconnachan on Loch Lomond. Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3

Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.At one time sea eagles are likely to have been revered in Scotland. The Tomb of the Eagles, a Neolithic burial site in Orkney, is testament to that, as are the carved Pictish stones depicting what’s hard not to believe have to be sea eagles. For all that, they most certainly became a hated species in more recent centuries, after the Clearances in the Highlands when the era of the Victorian hunting estate had been ushered in. When they were reintroduced, Rum was the location chosen by the then Nature Conservancy Council for the release of the first sea eagles in 1975. It’s somehow an island made for eagles, and set in a wider wildscape designed for them every bit as much. Across the water from Scotland, Norway had and has a very healthy population of the birds. So it was eaglets were collected at 6-8 weeks of age from nests in Norway: over the next 10 years a total of 82 eaglets (39 males and 43 females) were brought to Scotland.Presenter Kenneth StevenProducer Mark RickardsA Whistledown Scotland Production for BBC Radio 3