The Poetry Detective

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Vanessa Kisuule explores the stories behind the poems we carry with us through life.

What's the line of poetry that will live in your head forever? Vanessa Kisuule tells the stories of poems that speak to us so strongly that we return to them again and again.

This is a show about the poems we carry with us. The poems that speak to us so strongly that we return to them in times of confusion, fear, loneliness or joy. Some of us might choose to scribble a couple of lines on a Post It and stick it to the mirror. Some of us mutter them under our breath like a mantra. Some of us ink them permanently into our skin. Some of us find that lines come back to us, unbidden, across the decades - and transport us to another time and place. 

Our Poetry Detective is the writer Vanessa Kisuule. She meets people with a poem that is precious to them, and unfolds the history of the poem. Why does it mean so much to them? Who wrote it and how? What's the story behind how it came to be written? How does it work on us?

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The Poetry Detective: Poems for Turbulent Times

Poems for Turbulent Times

BBC Radio 4 - The Poetry Detective, Poems for Turbulent Times

Stories of the poems that go with us through life. With Vanessa Kisuule.

Vanessa Kisuule returns with a new series of The Poetry Detective, a radio show about the poems that go with us through life.

The Poetry Detective is a radio show about how poetry sits in people's everyday lives. Each week the writer Vanessa Kisuule speaks to people with a poem that has been meaningful to them. She finds out why the poem matters, and then unfolds the backstory of the poem itself - who wrote it, what was the context it came out of and how does it work on us? In this episode, Vanessa speaks to people who have lived through times of crisis - finding out about how poetry has helped them navigate a world that often feels unsurvivable.   

Poetry doesn’t  always need to be explicitly about war, conflict or turbulence to help us better understand such circumstances. Nor does it need to give a simple message of hope and perseverance. In our first story, we hear from someone who found his own experience reflected in a surprising source. Louis Yako is an anthropologist and writer. Today he lives in North Carolina, but he grew up in Iraq. Growing up, he has always had a huge passion for languages and books, and in the year 2000 he began studying English Literature at the University of Baghdad. The course was rigorous and traditional - the students read Dickens, Austen and the Romantic poets in great depth. Louis was in heaven. 

In one fellow student he immediately recognised a kindred spirit. A young woman, kind and beautiful, who shared his love of poetry. The two became fast friends and talked for hours about the poems they loved. They exchanged long, handwritten letters to continue their conversations when they couldn't speak in person. 

Then in 2003 came the US invasion, and Louis was forced to put his studies on hold. When he and his friend were eventually able to resume their studies there was one poem that resonated for them especially strongly - Lord Alfred Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. The people of Iraq were suffering after years living under UN sanctions, the effects of the war, and the outbreak of Shia/Sunni violence.  Like the Lady in her tower, forced to watch the world through a mirror, Louis explains that the people of Iraq felt they too were under a curse. They were "half sick of shadows", cut off from the world, having lived under Saddam Hussein's regime and its censorship of the media. Line by line, he and his friend related the poem to their lives in Iraq. Where was their Camelot and would they ever reach it? And what would become of them both as the violence escalated?

Vanessa also speaks to lisa luxx,, a writer, performer, essayist and activist of British and Syrian heritage who splits her time between the UK and Lebanon. lisa was working on her debut collection, when in August 2020 a huge blast ripped through Beirut port. The blast destroyed entire neighbourhoods of the city. More than 200 people were killed, more than 6,500 were injured, and around 300,000 people were displaced from their homes. lisa was out on the streets, distributing aid and supporting people living in extremely challenging conditions. People needed access to electricity and sanitation, help with medical bills, basics like water and a sack of rice. Delivering the manuscript for her debut collection felt to be very far down on the list of priorities. Poetry felt luxurious, superfluous; it would feel almost inhumane to sit and write a poem while people around her were suffering. "I told my editor I don’t believe in poetry any more."

She became close to one of the families she was supporting, and they invited her to eat with them. Sitting down around a large shared dish of rice, they asked her what she did and when they found out she was a poet, asked her for a poem. She felt embarrassed that she didn't have a poem to offer in that moment. A poem that could be as useful as rice. She speaks with Vanessa about what a "rice poem" might look like - a practical poem that could be offered in the moment it is needed. 

Produced in Bristol by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio

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