The Verb

The Verb is lured this week into seductive places: poet Luke Wright presents a show full of light, cool water, shadows on stone, and the over-reliance on place-names (by lyricists). His guests are the poet Helen Mort (who shares poems of swimming and Lincolnshire from her collection 'The Illustrated Woman'), by the cartoonist and writer Martin Rowson who tries to persuade Luke that his passion for the Evelyn Waugh novel 'Brideshead Revisited' is misplaced - by Kate Fox (Verb regular and stand-up poet) who discovers seduction nirvana in an unlikely popular song, and by Anita Sethi (author of 'I Belong Here' ) who shares her love of Manchester's Oxford Road, and Manchester Museum where she is writer-in-residence. Our 'Something New' poem (celebrating 100 years of the BBC) is by Jean Sprackland, and our 'Something Old' poem is 'Sea Fever' by John Masefield. Ian McMillan presents again next week - exploring the power and pleasure of last lines.

What do we remember about childhood? And how do we write about it, without feeling trapped in the past? Ian McMillan talks to poet Don Paterson about music as a mnemonic tool, his youthful attraction to the art of origami, and the perils of confectionary. He talks to writer Sally Bayley about her sequence of books that capture the language fragments and stories from a childhood where facts were 'thin on the ground' - and about the part Shakespeare and his characters play in her latest book 'No Boys Play Here'. And Donovan McAbee, professor and poet, also joins Ian to explore the influence of childhood experiences on the work of Serbian-born poet Charles Simic - who became Poet Laureate of the US (writing in his fourth language), and died earlier this year. We also hear a poem from the BBC archive - Sylvia Plath's 'Purdah'.

Ian McMillan and his guests explore writing and cityscapes - asking how does architecture make us think about the writing process, and how do language and cities refresh each other – or use each other?Joining Ian are the novelist Jenny Colgan on the 'City of Invention' (which the late novelist Fay Weldon uses to describe literature in her book 'Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen'), by skateboarder and poet Olly Todd on his new collection 'Out for Air', by the writer and novelist Reinier de Graaf, who explores the corporate language of architecture (and the need for all new buildings to be 'officially amazing'), and the poet Geraldine Monk, who shares a brand new commission - part of our BBC centenary series 'Something Old, Something New'.

On The Verb this week join Ian McMillan for a celebration of remarkable poets and poetry as he presents readings from all the collections shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. The prize is awarded annually by the T.S. Eliot Foundation for the best collection of the year and the winner receives £25,000. Anthony Joseph was declared this year's winner by the judges for his 'luminous' collection Sonnets for Albert.Alongside readings from the poets themselves, Ian reflects how their work reverberates with the here and now, refreshing the language and giving us maps and signposts for these turbulent times.The shortlisted poets featured along with Anthony Joseph are Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Philip Gross, Denise Saul, Yomi Sode, Mark Pajak, Jemma Borg, James Conor Patterson, Zaffar Kunial and Fiona Benson. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright

This week on the Verb we're taking in the air, and letting it out again as we explore how breath shapes and moulds the poetic line and stanza, how it can breathe life into a story and how breathing itself can be a kind of narrative. Ian McMillan is joined by the poet Stephen Watts whose poems pulse and flow with the rhythm of breath, novelist Emma Carroll whose book The Tale of Truthwater Lake breathes life into the future and revives the past, James Nestor a journalist and free diver who teaches us how to survive with and without breathing and poet Daisy Lafarge whose collection Life Without Air was shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize.

This edition of The Verb is another chance to hear an extended interview with the prize winning novelist Hilary Mantel who died last year. The programme looks at her life in writing, from her struggle to publish the first book she ever wrote, the historical epic A Place of Greater Safety to the phenomenal success of her Thomas Cromwell books Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, both of which won the Booker Prize. We learn about the themes which run through all her work: the pursuit of power, fame and how it changes us, the collective versus the individual voice, and ghosts (which for Mantel are choices not made, both in her life and in her writing). She sheds light on her relationship with Thomas Cromwell, how she avoids pastiche when writing historical dialogue, and explains how working on the RSC adaptations of her Thomas Cromwell books influenced the final book in the trilogy, ‘The Mirror and The Light’ which at the time of recording was yet to be published. Hilary Mantel published her first novel Every Day is Mother’s Day in 1985. She won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fludd, and the Hawthornden Prize for An Experiment in Love. Her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost won the MIND Book of the Year award. Mantel is the first British writer to win the Booker Prize twice.Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Jessica Treen

Join Ian McMillan for a festive recording of The Verb, in which we'll encounter a parade of imaginary creatures conjured through poems and songs and stories brought by his guests. The poet and performer John Hegley has written us a brand new poem, YA superstar Melvin Burgess tells us about his debut adult novel ‘Loki’, poet and playwright Testament will be performing a piece from his show ‘Blake Remixed’ fusing hip-hop with the iconic poetry of William Blake and folk singer Bella Hardy who'll be talking about her return to traditional ballads and of course singing a song or two.Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright

Ian McMillan explores the ghostly presences and phantoms of predecessors, literary or not, which hover in and around all writing. In poetry and stories how do we seek through the spectres of time and memory to conjure invocations of people lost to us, and to understand the importance of human connections through time and space? With David Constantine, Denise Riley, Andrew Taylor and Clare Shaw. David Constantine's new book Rivers of the Unspoilt World interweaves fictional characters and events with the real to create new ways of seeing and connecting our past, present and possible futures. Denise Riley's latest collection Lurex is a meditation on the timelessness of time, in which the past is never really past but is both then and now, haunting, our memories and our futures. Andrew Taylor's collection Northangerland conjures the ghost of Bramwell Bronte to rewrite his poetry for the modern reader. Clare Shaw's Towards A General Theory of Love seeks to summon the Spirit of those we have loved and lost.Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright

The Verb this week is another chance to hear Ian McMillan's interview with the great Scottish poet Douglas Dunn, in front of our Poetry Book Club audience. Douglas Dunn is the author of over ten poetry collections. He published his debut in 1969, whilst working in the Brynmor Jones Library at Hull under Philip Larkin. The book, Terry Street, won the Somerset Maugham Award. Since then Douglas has continued to write poems that shine a light on the human condition - on our foibles, our desires, our fragility. His 2019 collection, The Noise of a Fly, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot award. Among other awards he received the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1985 for Elegies, a moving account of his wife's early death from cancer. Dunn was awarded the OBE in 2003 and is an Honorary Professor at St Andrews. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright

This week we examine the sometimes painful process of drafting and redrafting. We're joined by Denise Mina, who appeared on the Verb in 2019 to share her feelings towards a book she had only just started. What became of it? Listen to find out.Toby Litt's current novel is 'A Writer's Diary'. Initially published in the form of daily emails to subscribers, the lines between fact and fiction appear to blur with every email. How is a work like this drafted? Paul Tran says redrafting of his poems is also a redrafting and a rebuilding of the self in the wake of trauma or extremity. For Singer-songwriter and folk historian Polly Paulusma it is through the process of drafting that ideas and images that first appear buried bubble up to the surface, And our 'Something New' poem this week comes from Costa Award-winning poet Hannah LowePresenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright