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Roger McGough is back with a Poetry Please celebrating the humble bee. The stripy creatures have long been a muse to poets from Tagore to Carol Ann Duffy. With readers James Fleet and Amanda Root, and beekeeper Jeff Davey. Producer Sally Heaven.

30 minutes

Last on

Sat 12 Sep 201523:30

This Week's Poems

Equinox

By Elizabeth Alexander

From American Blue – Selected Poems

Published by Bloodaxe

Brother Douglas Looks After the Bees

By David Scott

From Playing for England

Published by Bloodaxe

Bees Cannot Fly

By Roger McGough

From Roger McGough – Collected Poems

Published by Viking

Virgil’s Bees

By Carol Ann Duffy

From The Bees

Published by Picador

An extract from The Eclogues and Georgics

by Virgil

Translated by C Day Lewis

Published by Oxford University Press

The Honeycomb

By Pauline Stainer

From The Honeycomb

Published by Bloodaxe

Spelling Bees

By Roger McGough

From The Bees Knees

Published by Puffin

Extract from Bee Journal

By Sean Borodale

Published by Jonathan Cape

‘We both live in the same village..’

By Rabindranath Tagore

Taken from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/1900

‘Over the green and yellow..’

By Rabindranath Tagore

Taken from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/1888

Cornish Wind

By Arthur Symons

From This Green Earth: A Celebration of Nature Poetry

Published by Ellenbank Press

The Hive

By Jo Shapcott

From Six Bee Poems

From https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/six-bee-poems/

Extract from The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland

By Steve Roud

Published by Penguin

Telling the Bees

By John Greenleaf Whittier

From The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

Published by Oxford University Press

The Barn

By Peter Didsbury

From Scenes From A Long Sleep – New and Collected Poems

Published by Bloodaxe

A Bee

By Peter Didsbury

From Scenes From A Long Sleep – New and Collected Poems

Published by Bloodaxe

The Beekeeper to his Assistant

By Noel Duffy

From http://noelduffy.net/poetry/in-the-library-of-lost-objects/the-beekeeper-to-his-assistant/

Credits

RoleContributor
PresenterRoger McGough
ReaderJames Fleet
ReaderAmanda Root
Interviewed GuestJeff Davey
ProducerSally Heaven

Broadcasts

  • Sun 6 Sep 201516:30
  • Sat 12 Sep 201523:30