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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Poetry Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly opportunity for listeners to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

A brand new poetry slot on Radio 4 Extra gives listeners a weekly opportunity to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

Poetry Extra: Adventures in Poetry - Not Waving but Drowning

14/08/2016

Adventures in Poetry - Not Waving but Drowning

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Adventures in Poetry - Not Waving but Drowning

Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry featuring Stevie Smith and her powerful poem.

4 Extra Debut. Daljit Nagra introduces Adventures in Poetry featuring Stevie Smith and her powerful poem Not Waving But Drowning. From December 2010.

BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with an episode of Adventures in Poetry. 

Peggy Reynolds asks what it is about Stevie Smith's poem 'Not Waving but Drowning' which has kept it relevant since 1957. The phrase itself turns up endlessly in newspapers, both red-tops and broadsheets, and is particularly loved by writers on sports pages - not, you might think, the obvious place to look for soul-searching poetry. But underneath the snappy economy of the first line runs a complex and universal emotional truth, examined here by a Samaritan, a sports writer and Stevie Smith's biographer.

Adventures in Poetry is a series focussing on classic poems whose lines or images have entered our national consciousness.

Producer: Christine Hall 

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

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