The Verb

What makes a good manifesto? Are they better if they are sloganeering or questioning? Radio 1's Greg James and co-writer Chris Smith's new book is like a manifesto for the imagination, Malika Booker co-founded a poetry workshop that has transformed the literary landscape, and Kathryn Williams' songs always chart new territory - they join Ian McMillan to help him shape The Verb Manifesto which will be launched in the autumn.Malika Booker founded the poetry workshop 'Malika's Poetry Kitchen' alongside fellow poet Robert Robinson twenty years ago, inspired in part by the American writer June Jordan's ideas in 'Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Handbook' . The workshop has included many of our most exciting poets, and an anthology celebrating the workshop is published on 5th August, called 'Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different' ( edited by Maisie Lawrence and Rishi Dastidar).Greg James and Chris Smith have turned an idea that came to Greg in a dream, into a novel for children called 'The Great Dream Robbery'. With a an acute ear for the sound of language, and a Dadaist expertise in the absurd , Greg and Chris celebrate the power of the imagination and the power of Llamas ( with bananas) - but will these things make it into our manifesto?Celebrated for her songwriting, Kathryn Williams' first novel 'The Ormering Tide' (Wrecking Ball Press) may have a listening manifesto at its heart. Its narrator is a curious listener, both to the natural world, and the people on her island. It's Rozel's listening which gives the reader hints of something mysterious that happened a long time ago -and which unsettles the present. As Kathryn has such an acute sensitivity to place, we asked her to write a special song to celebrate the places where manifestos are conceived.

Ian McMillan is joined by the Labour Party politician Ed Miliband, by ambassador for ‘Compassion in Politics’ Jackie Weaver ( Jackie recently shot to fame after a parish council meeting went viral), by writer Emilie Robson with a 'Verb Drama' featuring an existentialist cat, and by our regular guest, stand-up poet Kate Fox. How do they think the language of politics could change to become more compassionate? And what about their perception of the word ‘authority’? Can writers help us see it differently? And why did the young Ed Miliband love the 1980s US soap opera Dallas so much - which was all about the power and authority exerted by Stetson-wearing characters like JR Ewing?

Ian McMillan on the language we use to think and write about trees and the kind of thinking we do alongside them - with forester and environmentalist Peter Wohlleben whose books include 'The Hidden Life of Trees', poet and academic Jason Allen-Paisant, bestselling novelist Sarah Moss, and Scots language specialist and Makar of the North East, Sheena Blackhall.Producer: Ruth Thomson

Ian McMillan on how language and poetry affect our perception of time. In this Verb he explores the language of slowness with Oxford University geographer Professor Danny Dorling, asks poet Rachael Boast to read time-bending poetry from her new collection 'Hotel Raphael' (and also to take us deep into the different time-modes and time-zones inhabited by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge). Philosopher Roman Krznaric explains how to write about future time and how to be a good ancestor, and Verb regular, stand-up poet Kate Fox offers an insight into the smooth running of book groups for other species: the slow-reading flies, and the fast-reading deep sea isopods.Suggestions for a time-themed Book Club: Danny Dorling - Slowdown Roman Krznaric - The Good Ancestor Rachael Boast - Hotel Raphael

Ian McMillan is joined by some of the most dynamic writers taking part in the Hay Festival: Michael Morpurgo, one of the nation’s best-loved children’s authors and author of ‘War Horse’, columnist and best-selling feminist chronicler Caitlin Moran, and the award-winning Cameroonian American novelist Imbolo Mbue. They’ll be discussing the stories that change us, and offer hope of change - and explore how we tell stories about ‘change’, be it ecological, emotional or physical.

Ian McMillan explores the dream like experience of 'reverie' - with Terrance Hayes, Bea Roberts, Rachel Genn and Ira Lightman.What does reverie mean to writers in 2021? Is it simply a waste of time and a state of procrastination? Novelist and neuroscientist Rachel Genn argues that a reverie can be a creative state, a propping open of the self, which lets the world 'sniff around'.The state of reverie was important to Wanda Coleman, the American poet known as 'the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles'. Coleman died in 2013, and her selected poems 'Wicked Enchantment' has just been published. The collection is edited and introduced by the poet Terrance Hayes, who joins us to celebrate her work, and to share one of her 'American sonnets', which inspired the form of his own collection 'American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin'. ' How does modern technology affect reverie? Can we truly get lost in our thoughts in the age of the 'doomscroll' and the 'rabbit-hole' of the internet? Theatre-maker Bea Roberts has written us a short audio piece taking us on an online reverie through auto-harps and silk pyjamas. A Verb about 'reverie' would not be complete without a reverie about the word 'reverie' itself. Our regular guest, the poet Ira Lightman lets us dream ourselves into its heart with a new poem commissioned for The Verb - and invites our guests to collaborate with him on air. And do we need a more approachable sounding word for 'reverie' ?

Ian McMillan explores the language of ancestry and the impact our families have on us across the generations and through the passing of time. With poets Hollie McNish whose grannies feature prominently in her latest collection 'Slug...and other things I've been told to hate', and Gillian Clarke whose new bilingual edition of The Gododdin - written by the 13th-century Welsh bard Aneirin - acknowledges what we inherit from the past. And columnist and author of 'House of Glass' Hadley Freeman, who found a shoebox of objects in the back of her grandmother's closet which told the story of four Polish siblings whose lives went in very different directions.Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Ruth Thomson

Ian McMillan explores the skill of collaboration - joined by guests Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write best-selling thrillers under the pseudonym Nicci French, and by Britain's finest, if only, comedy-jazz-rap duo 'Harry and Chris' (poet Harry Baker is a Poetry Slam Champion, and Chris Read is an award winning songwriter); they talk - and sing - about the ups and downs of creative collaboration. Nicci French's latest book is 'The House of Correction'. 'Harry and Chris' are performing with a socially distanced audience in May and June.https://www.harryandchris.com/

What kind of writing keeps us thinking about technology and social media platforms, and their place in our lives - especially when they're seamlessly woven into our days? Ian McMillan is joined by comedian and actress Isy Suttie, political analyst Nanjala Nyabola, the poet Jack Underwood, and communications lecturer Dr Paul Taylor.Isy Suttie writes and performs a brand new song for The Verb about disappearing into the wormhole of the smartphone, and considers throwing her devices into the sea. But will that just encourage sharks to tweet, she wonders? Isy won a Sony Award for her radio series 'Pearl and Dave'; her novel 'Jane is Trying' is published later this year.Political Analyst and essayist Nanjala Nyabola tells us about the satisfaction of finding Kiswahili words for technological terms conceived in English, and how important the right language is for shaping our political futures. Nanjala shares her love of the work of Botswanan writer Bessie Head and discusses her collection of essays 'Travelling While Black'.Poet Jack Underwood's new book is a lyric essay, combining poetry and prose; it's called 'Not Even This: Poetry, parenthood and living' and is a tender exploration of time, uncertainty and fatherhood. Jack argues for poetry as a respite from the risks of generalisation and certainty that much of today's technology seems to encourage.Dr Paul Taylor is a senior lecturer in communications theory at the University of Leeds, and he avoids social media completely. Paul explains why he looks for insights into how technology may be influencing not just how we use our time - but what we think we are here for - in the work of Italian novelist Italo Calvino and in the novels of French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre.

Ian McMillan celebrates pauses and punctuation with guests Kei Miller, Eley Williams, Kate Fox and Angela Leighton. They explore the different emotions, listening and reading experiences prompted by brackets, full stops, em dashes, blank spaces, and other writerly ways of building obstacles, time and listening into poetry and prose.Eley Williams reads a brand new commission for The Verb, a very short story, which delights in the longest dash of all - the em dash, putting it at the heart of a romance. Eley is the author of the novel 'The Liar's Dictionary' and a BBC National Short Story Finalist.Verb regular and stand-up poet Kate Fox offers a very personal review of various forms of punctuation - imagining them as rest stops. Is a full stop like 'bunking in a hostel on a Scottish island and rolling over on to a pocket full of Kendal Mint Cake in the middle of the night'? Kate thinks so.Poet and essayist Kei Miller discusses the way he uses space on the page, particularly in his new book of essays 'Things I have Withheld', to explore what is buried or repressed in silences. He also reads from his poetry collection 'In Nearby Bushes'.Angela Leighton, poet, critic and translator, opens brackets up for us - showing how they let us listen, especially in a poem, in a remarkable variety of ways. Angela also reads from her collection 'One, Two', evoking the soundscape and listening of the first lockdown of 2020.