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Poetry series exploring exciting voices from around the world.

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Mother Tongue: Series 1

Mother Tongue: Series 1: The Observing Eye

The Observing Eye

23/07/2017

Series 1

BBC Radio 4 - Mother Tongue, Series 1, The Observing Eye

Helen Mort introduces poetry that makes the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Tea bags, chairs and packing boxes provide inspiration in this edition of the globe-trotting poetry series. Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world.

The second edition of a new globe-trotting poetry series. Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Persian, Spanish, German and Chinese - and in translation - all inspired by the everyday objects and people around them. She considers how through the observing eye of poetry, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Tea bags, mushrooms and mosquitoes have all inspired German poet Jan Wagner. His poems give surprising perspectives on the most commonplace objects - they are witty, compassionate and novel. Wagner reads from his collection Self-Portrait with a Swarm of Bees, and talks about the process of translation between German and English.

Nicknamed the Poet of Objects in his native Iran, Iraj Ziayi writes about ordinary household items - chairs, slippers - with heightened intensity. In his poem Six Green Polish Chairs, a collection of childhood memories are triggered by the sight of a particular shade of green. Alireza Abiz translates from the Persian.

Helen Mort travels to Oxford to speak to Theophilus Kwek. Kwek is a young poet and translator from Singapore, whose version of Moving House by Malayan-born poet Wong Yoon Wah, recently won second place in the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation. Moving House explores the ordinary details of a house move, with a fascinating personal and political subtext.

Finally, there's poetry by Oscar Cruz, direct from the streets of Santiago de Cuba. Speaking to Cruz's translator Serafina Vick, Helen Mort learns about his mission to bring the everyday life and language of his city - in all its frank reality - into his poems. Muy caliente!


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Poetry series in which poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world.

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The Observing Eye

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