Ian McMillan presents some of the most exciting international poetry and poets - recorded in Leeds at the Contains Strong Language festival 2023. He's joined by Andre Bagoo from Trinidad, Ramya Jirasinghe from Sri Lanka, and by poets from the 'Language is a Queer Thing' project - an international poetry development programme from The Queer Muslim Project and the British Council - including Jay Mitra, Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Mukahang Limbu, Rachit Sharma, Anureet Watta, and Hafsa Bukhary.

Ian McMillan discusses the act of looking, what it means to write about art and to translate what you see into language, and the relationship between art and life; with American poet Terrance Hayes, Christine Coulson, whose novel One Woman Show is told through museum wall labels, author and art critic Laura Cumming, and Jason Allen-Paisant whose Forward Prize winning collection, Self-Portrait As Othello, explores self-examination through the depiction of the other.

Ian McMillan presents The Verb recorded in front of a live audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Leeds with Ian Duhig, Jacob Polley, South African writer and performance poet, Lebogang Mashile, and Kenyan poet, writer and filmmaker Ngwatilo Mawiyoo.

Ian McMillan hosts a special performance edition of The Verb recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Contains Strong Language Festival in Leeds. Featuring poetry from Hannah Silva, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Malika Booker, Cecilia Knapp, Toria Garbutt and Testament.

Live from the ‘Contains Strong Language’ Festival in Leeds, Ian McMillan introduces public poets from around the world, including Simon Armitage, Hanan Issa (the National Poet of Wales), Chris Tse (Poet Laureate of New Zealand) and Titilope Sonuga - Nigerian-Canadian poet and former Laureate of Edmonton. Ian will also hear from the winner of the 2023 Laurel Prize - the international award for nature poetry, set up to recognise and encourage the resurgence of environmental writing – one of Simon Armitage’s public projects as Poet Laureate.

Novels by Irish writers make up a third of this year's Booker longlist for the first time in the prize's history. Ian McMillan explores the boom in Irish writing and the wave of new and experimental voices melding poetry and prose emerging from both the North and South of Ireland. With Elaine Feeney, Martina Evans, James Conor Patterson and Liam Harte, professor of Irish Literature at the University of Manchester.

Ian McMillan presents Radio 3's The Verb from the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. He's joined by poet Clare Shaw whose poetry extols the poetic possibilities of peat bogs and moss; Ben and David Crystal whose new book Everyday Shakespeare offers us a quotation from the bard for every day of the year; Jimmy Andrex offers a meeting place between music and poetry and singer Emily Portman and musician Rob Harbron sing the words of Irish poet Louis MacNeice

A writing and confidence masterclass - Ian McMillan's guests Denise Mina, Kathryn Williams, Ian Humphreys and Len Pennie share their tips and experiences.

How much confidence do you need to write or create out of your comfort zone? What does it take to embark on unfamiliar genres - the historical novel perhaps, starting a podcast or vlog, or writing a lyric poem? And how can the great poet, performer and humorist Ivor Cutler inspire us to write our most authentic material? Is confidence a helpful word for writers?

Ian is joined by one of our most versatile novelists, Denise Mina - who explores the role of certainty in her new novel 'Three Fires', by singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams (who has pubished a novel 'The Ormering Tide' and also presents her own podcast ('Before the Light Goes Out'), by the poet and editor of 'Why I Write Poetry' Ian Humphreys, and by celebrator of Len Pennie, known as Miss Punnypennie - who invites her followers on social media to enjoy 'Scots and sarcasm' and has a poetry book in the pipeline.

Ian McMillan explores different ways into and out of and through the things we write, and discovers new ways of thinking about language and meaning; with poet Nick Thurston who has co curated The Weight of Words, an exhibition on the poetry of sculpture and the sculpture of poetry, fiction writer Alice Jolly whose new collection of stories ‘From Far Around They Saw Us Burn’ examines how everyday interactions can change our lives in new and unpredictable ways, playwright and theatre maker Megan Barker whose novel ‘Kit’ is a long running prose poem, and poet and performer Rommi Smith reads from her new choral work Forever?, a collaborative commission with composer, Roderick Williams. Forever? is a 21st century response to the iconic hymn Amazing Grace and which seeks to redefine its power and status as a song of resilience and resistance.

Forever? With text by Rommi Smith and music by composer Roderick Williams will premiere on July 22 at the IF MIlton Keynes International Festival.

The Weight of Words runs at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds from 7 July – 26 November. You can find out more about the exhibition via this link:

Presenter: Ian McMillan

Ian McMillan explores fathers, fathering and time with Nick Laird, Katherine Rundell and Jude Rogers.

Nick Laird's new poetry collection 'Up Late' (Faber) is a powerful account of what it means to think around and through grief, time and fathering, Katherine Rundell's incisive and moving account of the life of the mortality-obsessed poet John Donne (which also takes in his fathering of twelve children) is 'Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne', and Jude Rogers's story of her love of popular music and the role her father played in igniting it is 'The Sound of Being Human' - they join Ian for this Verb on family influence and family influencers.