30 April 2005
Saturday 30 April 2005 22:15-23:00 (Radio 3)
Ian McMillan presents the literature and performance show, with new work from Chimamanda Adichie and Philip Hensher, with a close-reading of David Hughes classic novel The Pork Butcher.
Programme Details
Programme details for The Verb April 30th 2005
Tx 22.15
On the programme this week a small sample of the life's work of Gary Geddes , Canadian poet and man of letters. Gary is famed in Canada for an ability to write moving pieces which work in all the allusive, multilateral ways good poems work, while still carrying a resounding political weight. The loving, ominous opening stanzas of "SandraLeeSceheuer" demonstrate this: the poem is in memorial of a student who was killed in the shootings at Kent State University, Ohio, in 1970, when the National Guard fired at students protesting against US involvement in South East Asia, and the bombing of Cambodia.
You might have met her on a Saturday night,
cutting precise circles, clockwise, at the Moon-Glo
Roller Rink, or walking with quick step
between the campus and a green two-storey house,
where the room was always tidy, the bed made,
the books in confraternity on the shelves.
She did not throw stones, major in philosophy
or set fire to buildings, though acquaintances say
she hated war, had heard of Cambodia.
In truth she wore a modicum of make-up, a brassiere,
and could no doubt more easily have married a guardsman
than cursed or put a flower in his rifle barrel.
Copyright Gary Geddes
For the whole poem, listen to The Verb by clicking 'listen to the last programme again'.Gary Geddes' most recent collection, Skaldance , is published by Peterloo.
ChimamandaAdichie is a rising star of international literature. She is a Nigerian, raised simultaneously in English and Igbo, who writes in America about Nigeria. Her first novel, "Purple Hibiscus " won wide acclaim, and her short story for The Verb, "Recaptured Spirits " hints at her fascinations with language, and the conflicting currents of her homeland.
DavidHughes, who died recently, was a master of English prose, an author whose stunning reviews were never matched by huge sales; his work was known and hugely admired in literary circles, but during his lifetime his fame never spread beyond them.
PhilipHensher pays tribute to his work, and close-reads Hughes' masterpiece, "The Pork Butcher "
And there's music from The Real Tuesday Weld , whose latest release is Les Aperitifs et les Digestifs, European Tour CD
