The Verb

Ian McMillan with poems to warm your cockles and put fire in your belly - with guests John Agard, Michael Symmons Roberts, and Edith Hall.Fiery sexual attraction, and the destructive fires that influence our stories - Professor Edith Hall shares elemental insights from Homer, a mystery love poet, and tells us about her book 'Epic of the Earth'. Can new stories help us forge a much better relationship with fire and nature?Magical thinking on the moors, poetry to protect us from the flames, and an exploration of a divine essence that electrifies living things - Michael Symmons Roberts shares poems from his new collection 'Dogstar'.Three time winner of the CLIPPA award for children's poetry, John Agard reads remarkable poetry for children, where laughter spreads like wildfire - and he also performs a new poem in the persona of Guy Fawkes.And the unique talents of Douglas Dunn, influential Scottish poet, tender elegist, short story writer and compassionate teacher. Ian and Michael explore the glisks and gleams that animate some of Dunn's best loved poems.Produced by Faith Lawrence

Are you ready for a poetry brew? Ian McMillan is and he's joined by:Graeme Richardson, Anglican priest and the Sunday Times poetry critic, with his debut poetry collection, Dirt Rich; Dr Julie Blake, cofounder and director of Poetry By Heart - the schools and colleges poetry recitation competition, on why learning poetry when young is a gift for life; Artist Simeon Barclay, shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize for his spoken word performance, The Ruin, on making art from language; and Hasti, winner of the Michael Marks Award 2026 for their debut pamphlet, Young, Dumb, and Full of Poems.Presenter Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

To 'earth' us this week, Ian McMIllan invites Owen Sheers, Jason Allen Paisant, Helen Mort, and David Morley to share poems that ground us - including work from the 2026 Laurel Prize for environmental poetry by the winner Fiona Benson.Helen Mort's latest book is 'Stepmother', Jason Allen Paisant's memoir is 'The Possibility of Tenderness' , Owen Sheers reads from 'The Green Hollow' as well as sharing new poetry, David Morley explores an earthy 'Neon Line' - and celebrates 'Middenwitch' by Fiona Benson.Produced by Faith Lawrence

Ian McMillan brings you poems and poets to shake up autumn from the Contains Strong Language Festival. Ian's guests, Alice Oswald, Paul Farley, Karen McCarthy Woolf and Liz Berry tread through the mellow fruit of John Keats' Ode to Autumn, but then turn their eyes and ears towards other surprising ways to write about this season of falling leaves, as well as exploring the art of poetry itself.Paul Farley's latest book is his virtuosic poetry collection 'When it Rained for a Million Years' , Liz Berry's verse novel about forced child emigration is called 'The Home Child', Alice Oswald reads from 'Rhapsody- a manifesto' - a new book that looks at the origins (and the future) of poetry, Karen McCarthy Woolf's 'Unsafe' looks at nature, land and who has permission to walk it freely.Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Faith Lawrence

Ian McMillan's poets show how the tiniest poem can help us brave the fiercest elements - from a haiku that's inspired generation after generation - with its careful noticing of the splosh of a frog into a pond, to a thin poem that summons the forces that shape mountains, and which end up shaping our own lives - and the poetry of biblical fire and wind. Some poets seem to be in tune with the elements - and in this show Ian celebrates the poetry of Wendell Berry, American poet and farmer - who encouraged us to 'come into the peace of wild things' in times of despair.Ian's guests are:The poets Robert Crawford and Keith Jarrett, who share poems of fire, air, water and earth. Professor of Physical Geography Jamie Woodward, who takes us close to a landscape that's inspired life-changing poems, and to poetry that can help us understand the changing landscape. Poet Kate Fox who brings us a new poem inspired by the screen-avoiding, earth-loving, farmer and poet Wendell Berry - who died in Kentucky last week. Kate wonders whether modern poets can really avoid the distraction, or the assistance, of a mobile phone when they try to get closer to the elements. Books: Robert Crawford's new book is 'Haiku. How the modern world came to fall in love with small poems from Japan' and his most recent collection of poems is 'Old World'. Keith Jarrett's latest collection is 'Hide me under the blood' Jamie Woodward's new book is 'A Little History of the Earth' Kate Fox's latest book is 'On Sycamore Gap' Produced by Faith Lawrence

Ian McMillan and poets Vona Groake, Jardel Rodrigues, Mira Rosenthal and Malgorzata Lebda bring poetry that helps us navigate storms, rivers and seas - real and metaphorical, and sound artist and musician SHHE (Su Shaw) immerses us in surprising sounds of the sea. Vona Groake’s latest collection Infinity Pool was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize this year. She’s writer in residence at St John’s College Cambridge and the Ireland Professor of Poetry at Trinity College in Dublin. Vona chooses a 'neon line' to explore and reads her own work.Su Shaw, who works as SHHE, is a sound artist and composer, whose music has been shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year. Su is based in Dundee – and has always been intimate with that city’s river - the River Tay. Her new album ‘THALASSA’ was produced sustainably, in keeping with her ecologically minded projects - and is is a six-part ambient work giving voice to the Mediterranean Sea.Jardel Rodrigues is from Old Trafford in Manchester – he’s won the BBC Words First Spoken Word Poetry Competition, and he’s a titan of Manchester’s shining spoken word institution 'Young Identity'. He brings us a new commission on the theme 'How to get through'.We hear the voice and the work of Malgorzata Lebda, a Polish poet who writes poems that reveal what flows between people and landscape. Malgorzata ran the length of the longest river in Poland, the Vischula – driven by her sense of how threatened our rivers are, a kind of poetry activism. Malgorzata's translator, Mira Rosenthal joins us to explain how she managed to convey Malgorzata's innovative way of writing about the body in her collection 'Mer de Glace' (Fitzcarraldo). Mira is a poet, and a Professor of Creative Writing based in California.Produced by Faith Lawrence

The celebrated writer Daniel Mendelsohn on his acclaimed translation of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. Poet Lydia Unsworth on finding inspiration for her new collection, Stay Awhile, in ring roads, shopping centres, and cooling towers.BBC New Generation Thinker, Joe Shute, on using poetry to reconnect communities to the waterway which powered Manchester's industrial revolution - the River Irk.Khadijah Ibrahiim discusses her choice of Neon Line for The Verb's long-running feature which asks a guest to talk about a line from a poem that shines out to them.Presenter Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu

The poems that nourish us, and the myths that nourish poems. What can a connection with a mythical figure give us, or a legendary flower? Ian McMillan is joined by Zeus, Poseidon, the Green Man, the trees of Under Milk Wood, and Wordsworth's favourite flower - courtesy of The Verb's guests - the philosopher Angie Hobbs, and poets Rishi Dastidar, Bradley Taylor, and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.Bradley Taylor brings Brummie legends like 'Pete the Feet' into a poem with the likes of Zeus and Icarus, in his slam-winning poem 'I don't care about the gods'. Bradley's book is called 'You Missed the Best Parts', and he writes a brand new poem during the programme.Angie Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Sheffield. and her most recent book is called 'Why Plato Matters Now'. Angie shares 'a neon line', a stellar line of poetry that can help us get through uncertain times. Rishi Dastidar shares a new commission on the theme of 'how to get through' - and celebrates William Wordsworth's favourite flower, the lesser celandine. Rishi also reads from his new collection 'Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak' - and we discover the mythic name of the legendary entertainer Bruce Forsyth.Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch's new book is 'Milk Wood Memoir'. It includes a legendary tree, and family recollections of that mythic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Samantha's poetry has been nourished by living in the Welsh fishing village of New Quay - also an influence on Dylan Thomas's play 'Under Milk Wood'

Ian McMillan is joined by Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News' International Editor, who shares poems that have sustained her while reporting from conflict zones around the world.Richard Skinner, editor of 14, the annual poetry publication dedicated to 14-line poems, chooses this week's Neon Line.Kym Deyn discusses their debut poetry collection Folkish which reimagines the folklore of Northern England for a contemporary reader.Cara Thompson, Nottingham's first Nature Poet Laureate, talks about her new project, Needle, which fuses poetry and textiles.Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Ekene Akalawu

In this special edition of The Verb, coming from the Hay Festival, Ian McMillan's guests are:Nicola Davies, the Children's Laureate Wales, who will be talking about how the natural world inspires her poetry and why she thinks writing is a superpower;Novelist Joanna Kavenna will be taking on The Verb's Neon Line challenge where a guest chooses a line that they feel shines out from its poem;Nathan James Dearden is the composer-mentor for this year's Composer's Medal. A former Composer's Medal winner himself, he'll be helping the shortlisted composers create new choral works using the poetry of Waldo Williams. He discusses the art of setting poetry to music.;clare e potter will be reflecting on her her participation in The Clearing - a Royal Society of Literature project where four poets from the home nations of the UK have written poems separately and together inspired by the myths and stories found in their respective parts of the British Isles.Presenter Ian McMillan Producer: Ekene Akalawu