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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: Coming Home

Coming Home

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Coming Home

Poet Daljit Nagra selects Coming Home, a reflection on life as a soldier.

To mark Remembrance Day, Poet Daljit Nagra selects Coming Home, a reflection on life as a soldier. With Andrew Motion. From November 2014.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Coming Home.  

In 2014 Andrew Motion visited the British army camp at Bad Fallingbostel, 40 kilometres north of Hanover in Germany. It's where the 7th Armoured Brigade - the Desert Rats - are based and where they returned after Operation Herrick 19, their final tour of duty in Afghanistan. 
 
Here he talked to a range of soldiers, and back in England he also talked to the mother of a soldier who had been killed on duty in Helmand. He has used these conversations as the basis for a series of new poems reflecting on what it is like for British soldiers to come home after their long and dangerous campaign in Afghanistan. The poems explore the particular nature of the Afghan conflict, while showing certain continuities that flow from wars through the generations.

In this programme, the interviews and poems are set side by side, creating a unique poetry event by Andrew Motion to mark Remembrance Day.  

Writer & Presenter: Sir Andrew Motion

Contributors: 

•	Lance Bombardier Stephen North
•	Padre David Anderson
•	Sharon Anderson
•	Major Wendy Faux
•	Lance Corp. Ben Johnson
•	Sgt. Vicky Clarke
•	Margaret Evison

Producer: Melissa FitzGerald

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.

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