The Essay: The Art of Apology

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The Essay: The Art of Apology: Episode 2

The Art of Apology

Episode 2

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Art of Apology, Episode 2

Poet Helen Mort explores non-apology through some of the poems that have shaped her.

Poet Helen Mort explores the contemporary hunger for apology, reflecting on when we say sorry to justify our actions rather than express contrition.

Poet Helen Mort continues her journey exploring the complexities and subtexts of apology, drawing on both her own lifelong tendency to say sorry for almost anything and on remarkable poetic apologies including Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Apology. 

She reflects on how we often use apology to justify or explain our behaviour rather than express contrition and examines the motives of those posting under the hashtag #sorrynotsorry. 

Do we sometimes say sorry as a pre-emptive defence against criticism, she asks? And is this a modern phenomenon or a return to apology's roots as a rhetorical or argumentative device? 

Producer Zita Adamson
An Overtone Production for BBC Radio 3

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Poet and self-confessed apology addict Helen Mort explores the human impulse to apologise.

Drawing on poems that have helped shape her, poet and self-confessed apology addict Helen Mort explores the human impulse to apologise and what we seek when we say sorry.

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