Poetry Extra: Mother Tongue

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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: Mother Tongue - Tracks of Time

Mother Tongue - Tracks of Time

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Mother Tongue - Tracks of Time

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

Daljit Nagra selects Mother Tongue reflecting on memory and history. Presented by Helen Mort. From 2017.

Poet Daljit Nagra visits the BBC's poetry archive and selects Mother Tongue the globe-trotting poetry series presented by Helen Mort.  

Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Macedonian, Old Norse and Russian - and in translation. Reflecting on the phrase 'tracks of time', she discovers how memory and history play a part in the work of these three poets.

Helen travels to Berlin to meet the Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov. Described as one of most powerful voices in contemporary European poetry, he writes with great lyrical depth, insight and originality. In his collection 'Remnants of Another Age', he reflects on the history of his Balkan homeland and on ideas of shelter and nomadism with a restless, timeless intelligence.

Heading up the North Sea coast to Aberdeen, we hear Scottish poet Ian Crockatt reading his fresh versions of the Old Norse verses of Rognvaldr, Earl of Orkney. The collection, 'Crimsoning the Eagle's Claw', is a treasure trove of vivid snapshots of the life of this twelfth century poet, lover, nobleman and sailor. Like meeting a Viking face-to-face.

Finally, Helen travels to Oxford to meet one of Russia's foremost contemporary poets, Maria Stepanova and her translator, Sasha Dugdale. Stepanova writes formally inventive and thoughtful poetry, teeming with references from her country's cultural memory and political history. Through her journalism and editorship of an independent, crowdfunded site, she is also an important liberal voice. 

Producer: Caroline Hughes
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

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