The Verb

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...

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 R...

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. Da...

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 c...

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 t...

On The Verb this week we're raising the curtain on playwriting. Ian McMillan is joined by four playwrights; Winsome Pinnock whose recent work includes The Principles of Cartography and Rockets and Blue Lights; by Liz Lochhead, whose writing ranges widely over playwriting and poetry and who has written for the National Theatre of Scotland, Steve Waters who works for stage, radio and screen and Keis...

Celebrate 100 years of poetry on the BBC with Ian McMillan's cabaret of the word. The Verb presents brand new poetry especially commissioned for the centenary, and explores the corporation's relationship with poetry - including highlights from the archive. With poets Paul Farley and Hannah Silva and the Director of The Poetry Society Judith Palmer.

How or what is the voice of the narrator, and what happens in a story when the narrator proves to be unreliable? Booker Prize winner Damon Glagut's novel The Promise toys with the idea of the narrator as different people at different times disorientating the reader and exposing the duplicity of the novel, poet Daniel's latest collection Single Window explores the 'I' in the poem and the poet, Shee...

This week The Verb is doing some straight talking and celebrating verbatim and everyday speech with the novelist Will Ashon whose book The Passengers is a collection of voices telling their own stories; the performance artist Scottee whose new podcast After The Tone listens to so-called ordinary people in all their extraordinary glory; the poet Anna Robinson whose work always listens hard to the w...

When we think of Liberation Narratives we perhaps most often mean slave or revolution narratives but they can be profoundly personal expressions of freedom as well as stories of huge geopolitical or historical changes. Ian McMillan considers Liberation Narratives with American poet Carl Philips, poet, performer and singer Rommi Smith, poet Yomi Sode and folk singer-songwriter and activist Grace Pe...

This week in tribute to the poet, performer, playwright and activist Benjamin Zephaniah who has died aged 65, Ian McMillan presents another chance to hear a special extended interview with him. Benjamin began publishing and performing his work for adults and children in the early 1980s, and had recently committed his life to print in his autobiography The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah. The...

The Verb this week is abundant with the language of Autumn and fruitfulness as Ian Mcmillan and his guests explore writing about the season and harvest festivals; past, present and future. Rebecca May Johnson is the author of 'Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen'. In this playful memoir she rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. A novelist and nature writer, everything...

This week on The Verb we're celebrating the birthday of Apples and Snakes, who've been pioneering spoken word poetry for 40 years. Ian McMillan is joined onstage at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham by six poets who've been involved with Apples and Snakes over the years; Casey Bailey, the current Poet Laureate of Birmingham, award-winning poet Kayo Chingonyi, Roy McFarlane, M...

Recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham, Ian showcases verse that has arisen from two collaborative projects: Across Borders and Language Is a Queer Thing. Dzifa Benson's explores the phenomenon of the Ghanaian drinking name which is part of her Ewe heritage, and we ask our poets to come up with their own. Alvin Pang gives us his insight into a location which was form...

The first Verb of a new season, recorded in front of an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival of poetry and performance at the Hippodrome in Birmingham. We have brand new work from the legendary dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson and we're also joined by two of this year's CSL poets; Romalyn Ante, author of 'Anti-Emetic for Homesickness', and Isabelle Baafi, who won a Somerset Maugham award...

It's the last Verb before we break up for the summer term, so we're having an end of term games day. Games Writer Rhianna Pratchett has worked across many games in a 20 year career. Some are big studio titles like Tomb Raider, where she was brought in to update the character of Lara Croft for a new generation, and others are indie games like Sketchbook Games’ ‘The Lost Words’, a game that Rhianna...

Michael Longley is one of Northern Ireland's foremost contemporary poets. His debut collection, 'No Continuing City', was published to acclaim in 1969 and since then he has published many more collections of verse, including 'Gorse Fires', which won the Whitbread Prize, and 'The Weather in Japan', which won the T.S. Eliot prize and the Hawthornden Prize. His major themes are war, nature and love....

Ian McMillan explores the language, poetry and perceptions of old age with Fleur Adcock who has been writing poetry for seven decades, comedian Pope Lonergan who has written a memoir of his ten years working in a care home, and psychotherapist Jane Campbell who at the age of 80 is publishing her debut collection of short stories this month. And in our Something Old Something New series celebrating...

Ian McMillan explores the language and complexities of male friendship with poet Michael Pederson whose book Boy Friends is 'a paean to all the gorgeous male friendships that have transformed his life', comedian Max Dickins who proposed to his girlfriend then realised he had no-one to be his best man, and film expert Adam Scovell who explores on-screen relationships from the buddy movie to the bro...

Adelle Stripe's Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure charts the gripping chaos and self-sabotage of a classic " drug band with a rock problem". She shares something in common with all our guests this week, who all stand at the crossroads of words and music. Her book describes a band who while plumbing the depths of personal behaviour and let's be honest - personal hy...

In the second of two programmes recorded in front of an audience at this year's Hay Festival, Ian McMillan is joined by Jennifer Egan, Gurnaik Johal and Allie Esiri. Jennifer Egan won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for her novel 'A Visit from the Goon Squad', she has just published a companion novel, 'The Candy House'. Gurnaik Johal's debut short story collection is 'We Move', a group of tales that chart...

Ian McMillan is always at home in front of a crowd, and in this programme, recorded at Hay Festival, he is joined by some of our most exciting writers, performers and poets to explore the idea of homeliness - literal or metaphorical and to ask if writing can be a kind of home. His guests are: the poet Lemn Sissay, whose latest book, for children, is a celebration of curiosity and belonging; by Mon...

Presented by Ian McMillan, The Verb, Radio 3’s showcase for the best in new poetry, writing and performance, hosts a special programme recorded in The Queen’s Library at Windsor Castle. The Poet Laureate Simon Armitage will perform a new work for the occasion, and we’ll explore rare poetic gems from the collection – annotated editions gifted to the library by his Laureate predecessors Wordsworth a...

This week Ian McMillan and his guests write to uncover previously hidden worlds and consider how to use language to hide in plain sight... Mick Herron is the author of the 'Slough House; series of spy thrillers about a group of discarded and overlooked M15 agents. The first book in the series, Slow Horses has been adapted for TV starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, and he has just published the e...

Ian McMillan's guests Emma Smith, Naush Sabah and Gerry Cambridge celebrate books and pens - and we hear a new BBC centenary commission from Imtiaz Dharker. Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford, and her new book is called 'Portable Magic - A History of Books and their Readers'. Emma explains why books are like bodies, and explores the power of the inscription....