The Verb

Green Memoir - Experiments in Living


Listen Later

The Verb on 'green' memoir - with the actor and writer Gabriel Byrne, and the poets Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Pascale Petit. What would our stories sound like if we told them through our relationships with the plants, animals and landscapes that are most dear to us? What happens when we start to see the natural world as an integral part of our own histories?

Gabriel Byrne is an award-winning actor and writer. His new memoir 'Walking with Ghosts' starts emphatically and lyrically with the landscape of his childhood home in Ireland and the great pleasure he took in it as a child. Gabriel also talks about his relationship with the earth - the experience of feeling the ground shift during an earthquake in Los Angeles and about the 'photograph he carries in his heart' - a memory of a ploughman working the land.

Pascale Petit won The Laurel Prize earlier this year (a new prize for poetry on environmental themes), for her remarkable poems fusing myth, the natural world (the teeming life of the rainforest) and her family relationships. Her new collection 'Tiger Girl' has at its heart, an encounter between a tiger and a baby - a baby who grew up to be Pascale's grandmother. Pascale also explains why the kapok tree is so special to her.

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's 'The Grassling' has been called a 'geological memoir' - it's a book which explores her deep appreciation for the red earth of Devon, where she grew up, alongside an account of her relationship with her father. Elizabeth-Jane reads new poems on the programme, poems which bring us closer to invertebrates and mosses. Always innovative in her approach to writing about intimacy with natural world, she also explains some of the writing processes that sit behind her work.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The VerbBy BBC Radio 4

  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

30 ratings


More shows like The Verb

View all
Global News Podcast by BBC World Service

Global News Podcast

7,599 Listeners

The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

The LRB Podcast

300 Listeners

Newshour by BBC World Service

Newshour

1,054 Listeners

In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,455 Listeners

The Documentary Podcast by BBC World Service

The Documentary Podcast

1,798 Listeners

Arts & Ideas by BBC Radio 4

Arts & Ideas

304 Listeners

6 Minute English by BBC Radio

6 Minute English

1,745 Listeners

Learning English Conversations by BBC Radio

Learning English Conversations

1,039 Listeners

The Infinite Monkey Cage by BBC Radio 4

The Infinite Monkey Cage

2,091 Listeners

Great Lives by BBC Radio 4

Great Lives

478 Listeners

Last Word by BBC Radio 4

Last Word

45 Listeners

Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast by Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast

Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast

347 Listeners

Backlisted by Backlisted

Backlisted

581 Listeners

Front Row by BBC Radio 4

Front Row

131 Listeners

Start the Week by BBC Radio 4

Start the Week

161 Listeners

Bookclub by BBC Radio 4

Bookclub

243 Listeners

The Book Club by The Spectator

The Book Club

83 Listeners

The TLS Podcast by The TLS

The TLS Podcast

183 Listeners

You're Dead to Me by BBC Radio 4

You're Dead to Me

3,186 Listeners

Americast by BBC News

Americast

719 Listeners

Cyber Hack by BBC World Service

Cyber Hack

1,610 Listeners

This Cultural Life by BBC Radio 4

This Cultural Life

82 Listeners

Strong Message Here by BBC Radio 4

Strong Message Here

65 Listeners

Take Four Books by BBC Radio 4

Take Four Books

6 Listeners

A Good Read by BBC Radio 4

A Good Read

42 Listeners