24 September 2005
Saturday 24 September 2005 22:00-22:45 (Radio 3)
Ian McMillan looks back at four decades of the Poetry Olympics with its founder Michael Horovitz. Plus the latest from one of Latin America's biggest poetry festivals taking place in Argentina.
Programme Details
This week on The Verb , literary perambulations with Ian McMillan and his guests. Writer and psycho-geographer Iain Sinclair discusses his latest book The Edge of The Orison , in which he retraces on foot the poet John Clare 's escape home from an asylum in Epping Forest . On the way, he discovers how the rural landscape which so inspired Clare has vanished from view, and uncovers the depths of his own obsession with Clare 's poetry. He tells Ian McMillan about the haunting influence of John Clare on his work, and he also unmasks the mechanics of his own brand of literary walking.
Also on the programme, the founding father of British performance poetry, Michael Horovitz , joins Ian to look back at 40 years of the Poetry Olympics , an event which paved the way for the hugely diverse performance scene of today.
In the week the 100 Minute Bible was launched, writer DJ Taylor explains why he hates literary miniaturisation and argues for more a more voluminous approach to reading and writing.
Plus, poet Kapka Kassabova reports from Buenos Aires with all the latest from the Rosario International Poetry Festival , and there's scintillating performance from Michael McGill .
That's all on The Verb with Ian McMillan and his guests at the slightly later time of ten o'clock , here on BBC Radio 3.
Producer: Aasiya Lodhi
Additional Information:
1) The Edge of The Orison by Ian Sinclair is published by Penguin
2) The 100 Minute Bible is published by the 100 Minute Press
3) The Poetry Olympics is at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Sunday 25 September at 7pm. Poets include: Michael Horovitz, Spike Hawkins, Christopher Logue, Adrian Mitchell, Sujata Bhatt, Eliza Carthy, Rachel Fuller, Jerry Hall, John Hegley, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jude Kelly (MC), Fran Landesman, Peter Lemer, Stacy Makishi, James Naughtie (MC), Grace Nichols, Madeline Solomon, Pete Townshend, Annie Whitehead, Kathryn Williams, Willy Mason, and the William Blake Klezmatrix - plus special guests. For tickets and further information: http://www.royalalberthall.com
