Poetry Extra: Borderliners

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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

Borderliners

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Borderliners

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

Daljit Nagra selects a poem by Hannah Lowe exploring the life of her Jamaican Chinese father and grandparents. From 2019.

Daljit Nagra selects 'Borderliners' featuring a poem by Hannah Lowe which explores the mysteries surrounding the lives of her Chinese Jamaican family. 

The term 'borderliner' was once a derogatory term for having mixed heritage. "Between 'bi-racial' and 'bounty,'" Hannah writes, "I find the label 'borderliner' which the dictionary tells me, means uncertain or debatable." Using this term and its troubling history as the basis for a new poetic form, the poem reflects on borders and borderlines, both physical and psychological.

Drawing on half-memories and imagined images from her family history, Hannah Lowe re-creates moments from the lives of her Jamaican Chinese father who came to the UK by ship in 1947 and became a professional gambler, her Chinese grandfather who moved to Jamaica as a legacy of indentured labour in the Caribbean, and most elusive of all the mystery surrounding the life of her Jamaican grandmother of whom she has only one photograph.

Producer: Jo Wheeler
Reader: Burt Caesar

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

First broadcast in 2019.

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