Ian McMillan presents an edition of the weekly language cabaret in front of a live audience at the Hay Literary Festival. Joining him are actor and writer Ken Campbell and the School of Night poets, who will be delivering some poetic wizardy, including instant sonnets. Ian talks to award-winning eartoonist Peter Blegvad and Welsh Chinese writer Peter Ho Davies.
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The Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka, is one of the great voices of contemporary African literature.
He believes passionately in the power of words to bring about change and is just as vehement about a writer's responsibility to the truth.
In 1986 this integrity and the quality of his poetry, plays and novels won him the Nobel Prize.
This Friday in a live edition of The Verb from Hay on Wye he'll be talking to Ian McMillan about his new memoir and the thrill of fusing writing with politics.
Ian will also be joined by Gwyneth Lewis, Wales' first poet laureate, the brilliant young writer, Peter Ho Davies, who'll be talking about his debut novel and Peter Blegvad, the Verb's unique audio cartoonist.
That's not all though. Just when you might have been about to venture into the nearest hospitality tent for a few crackers and a genteel glass of wine there'll be a thoroughly feral performance from one of the great mavericks of the spoken word - Ken Campbell.
He and two members of his School of Night will be making sure that the art of improvised poetry reaches places that have never been dreamed of before.
