The Verb

On The Verb this week Ian McMillan is up for a fight.

We're delving into the world of the adversary. He'll be talking to Man Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James about Moon Witch, Spider King the second book in his Dark Star Trilogy, asking why the sequel explores the psychology of a witch - a character more generally associated with evil deeds than inner motivations.

Hannah Lowe, fresh from a Costa Book of the Year win for her collection The Kids, will be exploring the adversarial side of the classroom, and unveils a special commission for The Verb. Unbuckled takes us into the world of an adversarial romantic relationship - with sad echoes of the Cinderella story.

And when it comes to the villain of the piece - how can you top Satan himself? The name means "adversary" in Hebrew. So we're about get Satanic with Joe Moshenska. He's published a new book, Making Darkness Light, The Lives and Times of John Milton. He'll be explaining how the poet's compelling, smooth-talking creation became the template for a new type of antihero. Look no further than Paradise Lost for your embryonic Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites.

And you can't talk adversaries in literature without touching on crime. Jane Casey's new novel is called The Killing Kind. When her life is threatened defence barrister Ingrid turns to a sinister stalker she helped to exonerate for help. Where does a classic Faustian deal with the devil come in the world of adversarial writing - and how much should we root for the bad guy?

Presented by Ian McMillan

Ian McMillan goes to the extremes this week to explore writing from the edges of time and place with Shetland based poet Jen Hadfield, John Henry Falle aka The Story Beast, Penelope Shuttle who's latest poetry collection explores Lyonesse, a lost and mythical land that once formed the land's end of Cornwall and Jon Ransom who's debut novel is a visceral and poetic story set in the wide expanses of Norfolk.

The Verb, Ian McMillan's regular foray into the world of language and literature, explores how travel writing, poetry and translation can ferry the reader across language, culture and time with Colm Tóibín on his first poetry collection Vinegar Hill; travel writer Sara Wheeler; Nandini Das, whose special interest is cross-cultural encounters and poet and translator Peter Robinson.

This week on The Verb, Ian McMillan and his guests are searching their hearts to explore writing about couples and relationships and the secrets its language might reveal. With Tessa Hadley on her new novel 'Free Love', poet Rommi Smith on writing the stories of people and places across time, inspired by images found in an overlooked photo archive, comedian Isy Suttie and Alex Hyde, whose debut novel follows the overlapping lives of two women called Violet.

‘What Kind of Times Are These?’ is the title of a poem by the brilliant American poet Adrienne Rich whose work covered many turbulent years. What kind of times indeed? Ian McMillan is asking his guests this week to provide their poetic answer to this question. With specially commissioned work from both the winner of this year's TS Eliot poetry prize, Joelle Taylor, and the writer, actor and Twitter Queen Miranda Keeling. Kiri Pritchard-McLean brings her comedic response to our question and award winning poet Emily Berry talks about her new collection Unexhausted Time which re-shapes and re-moulds our fragmented and fractured age.

Poet Fiona Sampson, conductor Alice Farnham, and broadcaster Tom Service join Ian McMillan to explore the maths, metaphors and musical terms that make up the language of conducting. Plus comedy writer Jack Bernhardt takes a sideways look at Hollywood's take on the tortured genius.

Ian McMillan presents poets reading from all the collections shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, awarded by the T.S. Eliot Foundation for the best collection of the past year, and gives his take on the year in poetry.

This is a special edition of the show recorded at the annual prize reading at the Royal Festival Hall in London (hosted by Ian) a day before the announcement of the winner - Joelle Taylor.

Ian celebrates the impact and achievement of Joelle's collection 'C+nto' and of the other shortlisted collections.

Poets featured:

Ian McMillan explores the language and imagery of sea myths and folklore from Mermaids and Selkies to Shapeshifters and other mysterious sea creatures, both real and imagined.

Ian's guests include the poet Steve Ely whose book The European Eel is an epic poetic odyssey following the imagined journey of a single eel from the Sargasso Sea to the rivers of Europe, and back to its birthplace, to mate and die, Robin Robertson whose new collection Grimoire is a series of retellings and imaginings of Scottish folktales that are often brutal, but with a strange beauty, the film maker Alastair Cole who takes us into the Gaelic language and its stories of the tide and waves, and Imogen Hermes Gowar whose novel The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, set in 18th-century London, explores the destructive sexual power of the mermaid, combining myth and legend with the harsh realities of the past.

Producer: Cecile Wright

Ian McMillan's guests, John Hegley, Carol Ann Duffy, Kathryn Williams, and Jay Rayner join our virtual audience in a literary Christmas dinner - revelling in the poetry, prose and linguistic satisfaction of Christmas food, in lyrics, recipes and in poetry.

John Hegley gives us the taste of a French Christmas and of thick skinned roast potatoes, Kathryn Williams and Carol Ann Duffy present brand new Christmas songs from their new album 'Midnight Chorus', Jay Rayner gives us Yule commandments (including the advice that gravy solves everything, and more controversially 'don't serve Christmas pudding'). Ian McMillan channels the New York poet Frank O'Hara to write a special Christmas poem (featuring tangerines and the mystic Julian of Norwich). As usual, Radio 3’s cabaret of the word is stuffed full of language play.

Come and warm your hands at The Verb’s fire – the words are sparkling!

Ian McMillan explores space in language and writing. Space can be explicit or implied through the space between words, between lines, at the margins of a page, or with pauses and gaps and silence.