The Verb explores 'The Midlands' - with the novelist Jonathan Coe  - on using the Midlands 'to think with' in his new book 'Middle England' , the poet Liz Berry on Black Country language, the writer and performer Steven Camden ( AKA Polar Bear) on the different influences on his 'voice'  - and musician Ben Walker and researcher Bethany Whalley offer a sound art tribute to the cult 1974 film 'Penda's Fen'.

Writing The Midlands

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The Verb, which for the past 22 years has been bringing linguistic delights to the Radio 3 audience, will be leaving to make its new home on Radio 4.   But in a mood of celebration Ian McMillan and his guests put the number 3 in the spotlight as they explore the magic and the power of three in poetry, storytelling and writing; with poet and memoirist Don Paterson to guide us around those poetic forms based on the number three, by long-time Verb favourite Ira Lightman with a brand new commission, storyteller and author Daniel Morden and The Bookshop Band who'll be performing songs inspired by books and by The Verb. Presenter: Ian McMillan  Producer: Cecile Wright

The Final Verbdown

Ian McMillan is leaning into unease this week as he discusses writing and Claustrophobia. His guests are Holly Pester, whose new novel 'The Lodgers' examines the psychological disturbances of precarious housing situations; we meet a woman renting a flat that is more like a sandwich packet than a house, and another who must make her own life extremely small as she lodges with a family. Catherine Coldsteam’s new memoir is ‘Cloistered’, a book about the twelve years she spent in a Carmelite monastery where she lived the life of a silent contemplative nun. Hannah Sullivan won the T.S. Eliot award for her collection ‘Three Poems’. Her latest book ‘Was it For This’ considers a life shrunk small by new motherhood. The last in our series of Verb Dramas is Ghost In The Machine by Karen Featherstone Presenter: Ian McMillan
Producer: Jessica Treen

The Claustrophobic Verb

This week The Verb offers you another chance to hear a special extended interview with Zadie Smith. Her audacious first book 'White Teeth', written when she was just 24, was one of the most talked about debut novels of all time.  Most of Smith's novels take place in north west London, where she grew up, and which she has described as the location of her imagination, and her heart.  In her latest novel 'The Fraud', also set in the area, Smith moves into historical fiction with a story inspired by an extraordinary real life court case. Presenter: Ian McMillan 
Producer: Cecile Wright  First Broadcast 13 Oct 2023

Zadie Smith

On International Women's Day Ian McMillan is joined by poets Joelle Taylor, Rommi Smith, Kim Moore and Shirley May to explore how women poets are using poetry and writing to explore and challenge sexism and to empower women through words. There's also music from soul singer, Sarah-Jane Morris, and musician, Tony Remy, from their new album 'Sisterhood'.
Rommi Smith reads a poem specially written for The Verb celebrating the colour purple; in 'The Night Alphabet', Joelle Taylor's first novel, one woman’s tattoos are each portals to a story of repression and women’s resistance, violence and justice; Kim Moore's poetry explores and exposes everyday sexism, gender, class and also performance as a female poet; Shirley May writes from the perspective of the Caribbean diaspora and reflects on stories of the women who came before her, and the young women poets finding their voices now.

International Women's Day Verb

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins’ practise notebooks, pianist Stephen Hough’s account of tackling Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, the voice of Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny in the words of Scottish poet Don Paterson, and E. M. Forster’s evocation of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in Howard’s End: just some of the texts we’ll hear on tonight’s celebration of writing about music. Ian’s joined by four Radio 3 presenters to discuss the challenges of all sorts of music writing, from concert reviews to programme notes, memoirs, poetry, fiction, and scripts for radio. His guests are Essential Classics Georgia Mann who pored over Oasis reviews in the N.M.E. in her teens, Hannah French from The Early Music Show who once read a biography of Pablo Casals in a day, Composer of the Week’s Kate Molleson who started out writing concert reviews at University in Montreal, and Corey Mwamba who presents Freeness and immersed himself in jazz books at Southampton library whilst doing his A-Levels.  Producer: Ruth Thomson

Writing The Midlands

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