Poetry Extra 

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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: A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley

A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley

Daljit Nagra selects the very best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley who lived in the centre of Cornwall. Presented by Jane Darke. From 2016.

Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects A Sea Shanty for Charles Causley.

When we look at the sea, W.H. Auden wrote: 'all that we are not stares back at what we are.' 

Jane Darke goes in search of the sea's truths as told by the Cornish poet Charles Causley. He was born and lived in the centre of the county and went to sea only during the Second World War as a sailor and yet the marine world shaped and defined his work. 

The filmmaker and writer Jane Darke lives in and works from a house just above a beach on the north Cornish coast. Her rooms are filled with salvaged objects from the shore. She has made a film about Charles Causley. For this poetry feature the filmmaker and the poet put out to sea and we find their sea lives and their land lives running together like a tide up a beach. 

With performances of poems by Jim Causley and Julie Murphy, by Natalie Merchant and by the poet himself. 

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2016.

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