The Verb

Michael Laskey has produced six collections of poetry since his first pamphlet in 1988. That was also the year he co-founded the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. His career in poetry which has seen him teach, edit, and publish and has resulted in him becoming this year's recipient of the King's Gold Medal for Poetry. As his Collected Poems is published, he looks back on charting his life in poetry. When Michael Schmidt met Elizabeth Jennings, he was a student and she was a celebrated poet. As managing director of Carcanet Press he become her publisher. A relationship that endured until her final collection in 2001. In her centenary year, he talk about her distinctive qualities as a poet and shares his favourite poem of hers. Michelle Penn takes inspiration from the Latin American iteration of the retablos art form for her new book - Retablo for a door. The poetry collection in part explores the female experience, but also turns its attention to subjects as varied as the first atomic bomb test, and Leonardo da Vinci's drawing, Vitruvian Man. She discusses why she found retablos such a useful creative aid for her poetry. In Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State, academic Rachel Douglas-Jones reflected on the poetic power of redaction to interrogate and understand the General Data Protection Regulations. She explains why redaction, currently in the news for its power to obscure, can also lead to revelation. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan is joined by Blake Morrison with the poetry of sibling relationships, Natalie Shapero - who reports poetically from the world of cinema in L.A., and Tara Bergin, who looks at how to escape from a poem, as well as sharing a 'Neon Line' with us. We also have our cartoon for the ear - an 'eartoon' exploring the origins of confusing words in the English language - written and performed by Stagedoor Johnny (Richard Poynton). Blake Morrison's new poetry collection is 'Afterburn' (Chatto and Windus) - his new book on writing memoir 'On Memoir' is published in April. Natalie Shapero's collection 'Stay Dead' is published by Outspoken Press. Tara Bergin's 'Savage Tales' is published by Carcanet Produced by Faith Lawrence

George Szirtes, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize and the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry, is the most recent poet to join the small selection panel for arguably the UK's most public celebration of poetry - Poems on the Underground. As the London Tube initiative reaches its 40th birthday, George discusses how poems are chosen and shares some poetry that he feels speaks to the strength of the scheme. Depending on how you count it, this month marks the 4th or the 12th anniversary of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia - a conflict in which poetry has become a player. Iryna Starovoyt is a poet and critic from Ukraine. She reflects on the 19th century poet and artist Taras Shevchenko - regarded as a totemic figure in Ukrainian literature, and whose name is on the country's highest award for Arts and Culture, the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. Katie Clarke, Director of Literature at The Reader organisation, shares her experiences of reading poetry with people who have dementia and the surprising power of poetry to make fresh connections at the individual and group level. Zain Rishi's debut poetry pamphlet, Noon, is published this month. He becomes the latest poet to choose a Neon Line for The Verb's regular feature in which poets reflect on poetry lines that they feel shine out. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan's guests this week are the singer and songwriter Richard Dawson, T.S. Eliot prize winning poets Jacob Polley and Sarah Howe and Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce - who celebrates Professor John Carey and the art of poetry criticism. Richard Dawson and Jacob Polley light up the past and make the future of energy and community life seem more real - by bringing their different sensibilities to 'Ancestral Reverb' - an album created by north east organisation 'Threads in the Ground' (directed by Adam Cooper). 'Ancestral Reverb' contains music spanning over 100 years, and the words of those connected to coal. DJ and producer Bert Verso sampled historic music for this album, and wove it through with his own new compositions. The records are embedded with fragments of coal. Richard Dawson's latest album is 'End of the Middle' and Jacob Polley's 'Hymn to Water' can be heard on BBC Sounds (www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002mw7t) Sarah Howe's new book is 'Loop of Jade' which beautifully takes on threads from her T.S. Eliot prize winning collection 'Loop of Jade'. Sarah explores a 'Neon Line' for us from the work of the American 20th century poet Elizabeth Bishop - a stand-out line that lets us into a poem. Sarah tells us about the power of the messy first draft, and where it can lead a poet. Children's Laureate, novelist and writer of the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony - Frank Cottrell Boyce celebrates the wit, generosity, and pithy opening sentences of Professor John Carey, whose distinctive voice as teacher, critic and broadcaster led so many into a deep engagement with poetry. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Faith Lawrence

Ian MacMillan has love in mind as he is joined by a swoon of poets all interested in the subject of love in lyric form. Kim Moore’s poetry collections include The Art of Falling and All The Men I Never Married. She's chosen this week's Neon Line, The Verb's feature on lines that shine out from their poems, from a love poem that has long moved her. She also shares a new love poem from her forthcoming collection, The House of Broken Things, Deborah Alma, poet, editor, and co-founder of The Poetry Pharmacy is a fan of love poetry anthologies She discusses the approach she took in her own love poetry anthology - Words For Love, and why she finds The Emma Press Anthology of Love edited by Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright, and Something New: Alternative Poems for Alternative Weddings edited by Caroline Bird and Rachel Long, such appealing collections. In Rob Macaisa Colgate's debut poetry book, Hardly Creatures, he models his collection of poems on the experience of a fully accessible art gallery, inspired by his work in disability arts gallery in Toronto called Tangled. Hardly Creatures features a series of love poems which Rob calls Benches to reflect the fact that he sees them as places of rest in a collection often concerned with the practicalities, the pain, and the politics of disability. Mark Connors, co-founder and editor of Yaffle Press, on the love song inspired poetry in their latest publication - Poems Inspired By the Best Songs of All Time. Presented by Ian MacMillan Produced by Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan explores Rainer Maria Rilke's life advice, and is joined by Paul Farley, Griot Gabriel, Kate Fox and Ulrich Baer Paul Farley brings us the sound of planes, and the world of the usher - as well as a life-long connection to Robert Louis Stevenson's 'A Child's Garden of Verses'. Paul's latest collection 'When it Rained for a Million Years' was shortlisted for this year's T.S.Eliot Prize. 'Can poetry change your life'? - poet and Verb regular Kate Fox - and writer and scholar Ulrich Baer explore a 'neon line' (an outstanding line of poetry' ) by the German language poet Rainer Maria Rilke; an enigmatic line that has left the page and entered popular culture. So why is Rilke's poetry so popular in 2026 - a hundred years after his death? Kate's latest book is 'On Sycamore Gap' - Ulrich's writing on Rilke includes 'Dark Interval: Rilke's Letters on Grief, Loss and Transformation'. Griot Gabriel is from Manchester, and founded The Poetry Place. In 2025 he won the Forward Prize for 'Best Single Poem – Performed' for ‘Where I’m From’. Here he shares extracts of new work and explores the resonance of the word 'hand-me-down'.

Join Ian McMillan for a celebration of remarkable poets and poetry as he presents highlights of the annual T.S. Eliot Prize readings, recorded in front of an audience at London's Southbank. Ian was the host for the TS Eliot Prize readings at the Royal Festival Hall - where shortlisted poets read from their shortlisted collections in front of a packed audience. For this edition of The Verb Ian has selected poems featuring infinity pools, slush, shopping malls, family inheritances, the beaver, and lost keys - and tells us which collection scooped the prize of £25,000, awarded by the T.S.Eliot Foundation. The poets featured this year are: Gillian Allnutt, Isabelle Baafi, Catherine-Esther Cowie, Paul Farley, Vona Groarke, Sarah Howe, Nick Makoha, Tom Paulin, Natalie Shapero, and Karen Solie.

Testament, beatboxer, rapper and writer - presents a festive Adverb (complete with a yuletide salad battle), with his guests the former Scottish Makar Jackie Kay, poetic legend John Hegley, Mercury prize nominated folk singer Sam Lee, as well as satirical supremo Brian Bilston. They bring iconic robins, soul stirring music, poetic Christmas questions, and quirky Yule traditions to an audience in the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Hall in Salford. Brian Bilston's very funny books include 'You Took the Last Bus Home', and 'Alexa, what is there to know about love'? His latest book is called ‘A Poem for Every Question’. He shares new poems and poems from his book ‘And so this is Christmas’: John Hegley brings surreal festive interaction and poignantly playful poems to the Adverb. He also celebrates a playful December celery battle recorded in the letters of Romantic poet John Keats. Sam Lee's album is ‘Songdreaming’ – he's joined by pianist James Keay to perform songs that sing us deep into this time of year. Sam organises 'Singing with Nightingale' events, so we find out where nightingales go for Christmas. Jackie Kay's latest book is 'May Day' - she shares a poem by one of her favourite poets Norman McCaig - which stars a robin - and tender winter poems from her collections.

Ian McMillan's guests include the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage with poetry from his latest collection 'New Cemetery', impressionist and poet Alistair McGowan and Joelle Taylor with her new book 'Maryville'. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage shares poems from his recent collection 'New Cemetery' - inspired by a cemetery that was being built near his house during lockdown. The poems incorporate a litany of moth species' names, meditations on writing, the dead as an audience for nature - and include responses to the death of Simon's father. Simon also contributes to our 'Neon Line' series - where we ask a poet to celebrate a remarkable line from any poem. Alistair McGowan is an impressionist, a stand-up comedian, as well as a pianist and a poet. In his poems featured on this week's show we encounter a tussle between a sofa and a cat, a critique of using 'that' instead of 'who' or 'which', and a tender exploration of the names we give siblings. His poetry collection is called 'Not what we were expecting'. Joelle Taylor brings us brand new poems from 'Maryville' - the story of a mythical bar in a snowglobe, a stage and a space for lesbian lives and relationships that might otherwise be forgotten. It's been described by Bernadine Evaristo as 'a consistently dazzling work of art'. Joelle won the TS Eliot Prize for poetry for 'C+nto & Othered Poems' and has since published her acclaimed novel, 'The Night Alphabet'.

Ian McMillan enjoys the language of the iconic 'Night Mail' poem by W.H. Auden, invites us into signal boxes, imagines train station bars, and evokes the empty platforms that inspire songs - as he celebrates 200 years of railway inspired poetry with his guests Don Paterson, Carmen Marcus, Bella Hardy and Patrick McGuinness. Don Paterson is a poet and musician. He's the editor of an anthology of train poems called 'Train Songs' (with Sean O'Brien) and described the chapters of his memoir 'Toy Fights' as 'train windows'. The Verb has commissioned Don to write a poem about a station that seems to him particularly unpoetic.. Carmen Marcus is a graduate of the 'Verb New Voices' writing scheme. She is a novelist and poet, and for the anniversary of the passenger railway she has been talking to passengers on the Stockton & Darlington line and writing train inspired poems. Carmen brings railway trolls and brand new words for the excitement of train travel to the Verb studio. Patrick McGuinness is British-Belgian writer and poet. He teaches French and Comparative Literature at Oxford. His latest book is a series of essays called 'Ghost Stations' - he explains why the idea of the 'ghost station' has been such a powerful 'engine' for his writing. Bella Hardy is a lover of ballads, a BBC Folk Singer of the Year, and a songwriter. The Verb has asked her to respond to one of the greatest train platform inspired songs of all time - Paul Simon's 'Homeward Bound' . Bella performs a brand new song that celebrates the way waiting for a train can lead artists to come up with some of their best work. You'll also hear the acoustics of a real signal box - part of a soundscape produced by Sheffield folk and electronics duo Polyhymns. Produced by Faith Lawrence ​

Shaun Usher's Letters of Note project became a cultural empire spanning multiple books, stage shows, and an online archive. He's now produced Diaries of Note - a collection of diary entries that span centuries from the great and the good . He discusses the relationship between a diary entry and a poem. Katrina Naomi on her latest pamphlet of poems, Dance As If, in which she reconnects with her body, as a woman of a certain age, through the medium of dance. Amani Saeed on the culmination of the Language Is A Queer Thing project which for the last three years has brought poets from India and England together to create new work. Mother and daughter, Fran Edwards and Jennifer Jones, on Rebirth - a collection of poems which began as a private conversation reflecting on their relationship, during the pandemic. Presenter Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan celebrates an iconic poem that inspired a generation of poets and readers - Tony Harrison's 'Them and Uz'. His guests include the new US Poet Laureate Arthur Sze, the former Poet Laureate of Belfast Sinéad Morrissey who brings us an autumnal 'Neon Line', zoologist and poet David Morley on his new book 'Passion', and Daniel Sluman on a landmark anthology 'Versus Versus - 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets' - edited by Rachael Boast, with the help of an Advocacy and Advisory Panel (including Daniel). Poets included in the anthology will be reading at London's Southbank Centre on 25th October. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Faith Lawrence

Writer and poet Maria Popova on taking inspiration from 19th century ornithological studies for her new publication, An Almanac of Birds – 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days. Slam poet Aditya Narayan has had an impressive winning streak this year – winning the Roundhouse Poetry Slam in April and the Loud Poets Grand Slam final in August. He discusses writing poetry for performance and rhyming English, Hindi, and Urdu. Kimberly Campanello and D.M. Black are members of a distinguished group - poets who have translated Dante's epic poem, The Divine Comedy. They reflect on their different approaches to the 14th century three part work which takes the reader to hell, purgatory, and heaven - Kimberly weaving in her personal history including her Parkinson's diagnosis and the history of Italy in her translation of Part 1: Inferno, and D.M. Black drawing upon his experience as a psychoanalyst in his award-winning translation of Part 2: Purgatorio, and his recently published Part 3: Paradiso. Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan presents The Verb from Contains Strong Language in Bradford - with poets Imtiaz Dharker, Kieron Higgins, Nabeela Ahmed, and Katrina Porteous (reading poems from her Laurel Prize winning collection Rhizodont). Rock, stone and sediments are everywhere in this celebration of poetry and poetry in Bradford. We have millstone grit and the story of stone in a specially commissioned poem from Queen's Gold Medal winner Imtiaz Dharker, the influence of ska on the sediments of language that turned Kieron Higgins into a poet. Nabeela Ahmed reads from her new book 'From Kashmir to Yorkshire' and explores the layers of languages, including Pahari, that helped to tune her poetry ear, and the winner of this year's Laurel Prize for Nature or Environmental poetry, Katrina Porteus, reads from her collection 'Rhizodont'. She was described by the judges as 'always keeping faith with the north-east' and the book was praised as a 'a crucial act of the imagination. speaking as non-human entities (eg an ice core) ...loving, knowing and authoritative'. Produced by Faith Lawrence

Testament presents poetry in performance from Daljit Nagra, Kate Fox, Andrew McMillan and Kirsty Taylor The Adverb is recorded in front of a studio audience in St George's Hall, Bradford at the Contains Strong Language festival. Part of the Bradford 2025 City of Culture celebrations. Testament is a writer, rapper, educator and world-record breaking beatboxer. Daljt Nagra won the Forward Poetry Prize for best single poem in 2004 for "Look We Have Coming to Dover!" Verb regular Kate Fox's recent books include 'Bigger on the Inside' and 'On Sycamore Gap'. Andrew McMillan won the Guardian First Book award for his debut collection Physical and Kirsty Taylor is a writer and educator inspired by her beloved hometown Bradford - she opened the City of Culture year in January performing to 20,000 people in City Park. Presenter: Testament Producer: Jessica Treen Exec Producer: Susan Roberts

Ian McMillan presents poetry in performance with Jackie Kay, Hollie McNish and Michael Pedersen in this recording of The Adverb at the Ledbury Festival. They share poems of friendship, childhood, and of love in its many forms - from the love of a child for a parent, to the love of balconies. Jackie Kay is the former Makar (Poet Laureate) of Scotland - she shares poems of great tenderness from her latest collection May Day and from earlier collections too. Hollie McNish is one of our best-loved poets. In books like 'Nobody Told Me' and 'Lobster', her work explores taboos around the body and the experience of motherhood. In this programme we hear her poetry of friendship too. Michael Pedersen is a poet and author, as well as the Makar for Edinburgh. He has been acclaimed for his attention to male friendship in his collection 'The Cat Prince' and for the poetic writing in his new book 'Muckle Flugga' - which is filled with warmth and humour.

Pulitzer prize-winning poet Forrest Gander discusses the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships. An initiative which awards $50,000 to poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions to enable them to create projects that enrich the lives of their neighbours, through responsive and interactive poetry activities. In awarding Laurie Bolger The Moth Poetry prize, Nobel Laureate Louise Glück said, "I respond to poems that surprise me". Laurie reflects on the impact of this assessment of her poetry, and explains why her first full poetry collection, Lady, is like a romcom blockbuster. Marking the arrival of this year's European Poetry Festival, its founder and director, SJ Fowler, joins The Verb to share his approach to bringing poets together to create new work. With a little help from Ian, he performs one of the poems - Levels of Care - that he co-wrote for the festival with Latvian poet Krišjānis Zeļģis. Writer and editor Rachel Segal Hamilton who specialises in photography, assesses the marriage of photography and poetry with two new examples of the form - A Difficulty Is A Light by Rebecca Norris Webb, and The Dereliction by Liz Berry and Tom Hicks. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Ekene Akalawu

Ian McMillan is joined by actor and writer Harriet Walter, sound artist Jason Singh, poet Gillian Allnutt - and hears ritual language for glaciers - from writers Andri Snaer Magnason and Manjushree Thapa. Dame Harriet Walter is one of our best loved actresses. She's absorbed the rhythms of Shakespeare's writing over decades of her award-winning work on the stage. For 'The Verb' Harriet performs new poems she's written for her book 'She Speaks', an anthology which gives the women characters from Shakespeare's plays a chance to explore their experiences and their relationships with each other. Jason Singh is a sound artist, and nature beatboxer. He shares an evocative soundscape recorded at a Shinto Ceremony in Japan for a scientist who's been called 'The Mother of the Sea'. Leigh-born biologist Kathleen Mary Drew Baker made important discoveries about a type of seaweed, discoveries that have had a huge impact on Japanese Nori production. You can hear Jason's whole piece on 6th July at Pennington Flash in Leigh ( Greater Manchester). https://www.visitmanchester.com/event/flashes-festival-of-nature-2025/99390101/ Poet Gillian Allnutt was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal in 2016 - and her new collection 'Lode' has been celebrated for its 'indelible images' . Gillian reads a poem about meeting the Queen, in which the word 'plimsoll' plays a surprising part, and another poem in which she invents the word 'ditheridoo'. Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason, and Canadian-Nepali writer Manjushree Thapa have both written inscriptions to mark the dying of a glacier called Yala in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. They join Ian to talk about finding the right words for the ceremony, and what impact they hope their language will have.

Ian McMillan welcomes poetry about fathers, songs celebrating the things that fall out of books, and a poetic investigation into the women who were labelled witches, with guests Alison Binney, Boo Hewerdine, Yvonne Lyon, and Fiona Benson. Ian also presents a new Eartoon (our cartoon for the ear ) which celebrates the quirks of phrasal Verbs written by Stagedoor Johnny (aka Richard Poynton). Alison Binney explores what it means to have a parent with dementia in a new collection called 'The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning' (Seren). Alison is an English teacher and PGCE course tutor - her debut pamphlet is 'Other Women's Kitchens'. Boo Hewerdine and Yvonne Lyons' new album is called 'Things that Fall out of Books' - they're performing their new songs in multiple venues across the UK in July and August - https://www.yvonnelyonmusic.com/events/ 'Middenwitch' is Fiona Benson's new poetry collection and is a Poetry Book Society Summer Choice. Her poems illuminate the lives of the women who were the victims of superstitions about witches, and examines the societies who deal with fear of illness and other misfortunes by blaming outsiders. Our Eartoon (a cartoon for the ear) this week delights in the seemingly arbitrary and confusing nature of phrasal Verbs. This is the latest episode in our series by Stagedoor Johnny 'Richard Poynton' in which he offers an origin myth for the English Language.

On this week’s edition of The Verb: Ian McMillan basks in the glow of a Neon Line explained by the celebrated Faroese poet and novelist Carl Jóhan Jensen; Karen Downs-Barton shares poems from her debut collection, Minx, which reflects on her Romani childhood; Cristóbal Bianchi, cofounder of the Casagrande Collective, on their Bombing Of Poems project; and Naz Knight, poet-in-residence at Luton Town FC, on drawing poetic inspiration from the terraces. Presenter Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu