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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: In Praise of Limestone

18/02/2018

In Praise of Limestone

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, In Praise of Limestone

Daljit Nagra introduces In Praise of Limestone featuring Auden's famous poem.

4 Extra Debut. Daljit Nagra introduces In Praise of Limestone featuring Auden's famous poem and Ian McMillan in the Pennine Dales. From October 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'In Praise of Limestone' featuring WH Auden's famous poem about the remote Pennine Dales.

After reading it at school, poet Ian McMillan fulfils his ambition to explore the limestone scenery that inspired the poem. Ian walks in Auden's footsteps, revisiting the places that so moved Auden when he was a boy and young man. 

Ian meets Tony Sharpe from Lancaster University, who has looked at how the area impacted on Auden's development as a poet. He also meets local writer and Auden enthusiast Robert Forsythe peering down the deep shaft at Haggs Mine, then venturing on in search of the places described in Auden's wartime New Year Letter from America. 

Ian meets mining historian Ian Tyler and local poet Josephine Dickinson, whose own work is rooted in the countryside. 

Producer: Andrew Carter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

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