Body of Work

Daljit Nagra selects the best poetry programmes from the BBC archives and ponders the gym - a space he finds most effective for editing his own work.

In Body of Work, Andrew McMillan takes us inside the world of the gym and explores the preoccupations which often shape our relationships to our bodies.

Through interviews, and newly commissioned poetry, Andrew McMillan, a poet who - according to the Sunday Times - “scrutinises the violent idealism of masculinity in monologues that are both tender and steely”, interrogates the intersections of poetry and gym culture.

Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988; his debut collection Physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. His second collection, Playtime, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2018.

He is senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at MMU and lives in Manchester.

Producer: Mair Bosworth

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.