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BBC Proms

Music: Classical

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BBC Proms: 2016

BBC Proms: 2016: Proms Poetry Competition: Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay

Performances & Events

08/09/2016

Proms Poetry Competition: Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay

2016

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2016, Proms Poetry Competition: Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay

Judges Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay and Judith Palmer are joined on stage by the winning poets

Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay and Judith Palmer are joined at Imperial College by the winning poets whose writing has been prompted by music at the 2016 Proms. Reader: Stella Gonet.

Judges Ian McMillan - poet and presenter of The Verb, Jackie Kay - Scottish Makar and Judith Palmer - director of The Poetry Society are joined on stage by the winning poets whose writing has been prompted by music from this year's Proms. The reader is Stella Gonet. 

Winner over 18 Category: Anna Kisby Runners-up: Graham Burchell and John Scrivens 
Winner 12-18: Lucy Thynne Runners-up: Katherine Spencer-Davis and Jason Khan 

Lucy Thynne Juliet on water inspired by Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture 

a breath, and the notes fall on dark water, 
hesitant at first, but then sailing, like pale
adjacent bodies rising on the blue hips of a 
young girl. I think of this girl's heart, hollowed
by the hands of that man, careful as they carve it 
to a canoe pushed out on to this ocean. Quavers
like geese follow as it skims, blemishing the 
stillness for only a second, bending the air, a
perfect house made out of water. Somehow you never 
think anything can hold you this tight by the ribs and 
still breathe. In my mind I think of the couple, spools of 
song pulsing beneath their boat, stellate and wet
against eyelids as it makes tracks like stains on my 
skin, a journey with an end best left unsaid. I think of
that tiny fistful of love, of blood feuds, of that 
girl running in from blue coldness, only to meet 
her crescendo, accelerando, 
fine.


Anna Kisby Fireflies Unlimited inspired by Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint 

We're in the half-built house
in Vermont - me and the man
I nearly marry, but don't - unroofed, holes
where windows will fit. In sleeping bags
on untreated boards, night falls and fireflies
arrive - a quickstep, a certainty, a flute added to
flute they synchronise. This was the dreamtime,
the simple time, that time between schooldays
and real life. Do you remember such a time
of firsts? We were living hand to mouth -
dollars counted into palms,
money soft as moth-wings.
In those days we went looking
for what we didn't know was there.
Our reward: fireflies without borders -
un-tame, a coming-together-last-minute plan.
We watch them sandpaper the sky, they jerk for joy,
they jagger, god's own migraine. In lightning-tongue
they sing to us Forget your sad cities of light, we are
our own ferris wheels. Now the roof must be on,
the forest cleared for lawn, each patio slab
a square of extinguished light. Anytime I want
I can catch them there, fireflies in a jar -
a torch-full of past, banging at the sides of this glass.


Producer: Fiona McLean.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

All broadcasts from the 122nd season of the BBC Proms

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Proms Poetry Competition: Ian McMillan, Jackie Kay

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