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On Form: The Sonnet

The Sonnet

BBC Radio 4 - On Form, The Sonnet

Andrew McMillan explores why poetic forms are fashionable again. This week: the sonnet.

Andrew McMillan explores the recent resurgence in formal poetry. This week: the history of the sonnet and how to write a modern one. With poet and academic, Aviva Dautch.

In this series, free verse poet Andrew McMillan meets a diverse group of contemporary British poets who are re-framing traditional techniques to write about the modern world, exploring why form is fashionable again.
In today’s programme, poet and academic Aviva Dautch goes back in time to unpick the history of the classic but flexible sonnet, with poems read by Juliet Stevenson. She traces the sonnet’s European origins and the poetic revolution that happened once it reached the UK and became a mainstay of English poetry in a modern multicultural Britain. 
This year sees the publication of three books of sonnets with new takes, ranging from playful to dark, on the traditional form. We’ll meet Jacqueline Saphra, author of 100 Lockdown Sonnets, as well as sonneteers Vidyan Ravinthiran and Hannah Lowe, hearing poems that travel from Limehouse canals to inner-city classrooms.  

The reader is Juliet Stevenson.

Photo of Andrew McMillan credited to Urszula Soltys

Producer: Mohini Patel

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Andrew McMillan explores why poetic forms are fashionable again.

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