The Verb

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

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.

Books:

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.

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

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

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

The comedy of corporate language, why a 16th century 'dark night of the soul' poem could help you through your own dark night, the experiments of J.H.Prynne, and the tenderness of boys' friendships - with Ian McMillan and guests Brian Bilston, Martha Sprackland, Daljit Nagra and Ira Lightman.

Brian Bilston's very funny books include 'You Took the Last Bus Home', and 'Alexa, what is there to know about love'? He reads from his new guide to reading and writing poetry: 'How to Lay an Egg with a Horse Inside'.

Martha Sprackland is a poet, essayist and poetry editor as well as a translator. She explores a poem called 'Dark Night' by the 16th century Spanish mystic St John of the Cross. It comes from her new book of translations, also called 'Dark Night'.

Daljit Nagra, poet, professor of poetry and radio presenter for BBC Radio 4 Extra reads from his new collection 'Yiewsley' (the 'Venice of West London' ) and illuminates this week's 'Neon Line' - a remarkable line in a remarkable poem.

Ira Lightman is a Verb regular, a poet and an artist. He dives into the words and ideas of J.H. Prynne, one of our most celebrated experimental poets who died in April.

Michael Laskey has produced six collections of poetry since his first pamphlet in 1988. That was also the year he co-founded the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. His career in poetry which has seen him teach, edit, and publish and has resulted in him becoming this year's recipient of the King's Gold Medal for Poetry. As his Collected Poems is published, he looks back on charting his life in poetry.

When Michael Schmidt met Elizabeth Jennings, he was a student and she was a celebrated poet. As managing director of Carcanet Press he become her publisher. A relationship that endured until her final collection in 2001. In her centenary year, he talk about her distinctive qualities as a poet and shares his favourite poem of hers.

Michelle Penn takes inspiration from the Latin American iteration of the retablos art form for her new book - Retablo for a door. The poetry collection in part explores the female experience, but also turns its attention to subjects as varied as the first atomic bomb test, and Leonardo da Vinci's drawing, Vitruvian Man. She discusses why she found retablos such a useful creative aid for her poetry.

In Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State, academic Rachel Douglas-Jones reflected on the poetic power of redaction to interrogate and understand the General Data Protection Regulations. She explains why redaction, currently in the news for its power to obscure, can also lead to revelation.

Presenter: Ian McMillan