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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Radio 4's cabaret of the word, featuring the best poetry, new writing and performance

The Verb: Writing Childhood

Writing Childhood

BBC Radio 4 - The Verb, Writing Childhood

Ian McMillan is joined by Don Paterson, Sally Bayley and Donovan McAbee

Ian McMillan is joined by Don Paterson, Sally Bayley and Donovan McAbee to explore piecing together youth and childhood and the poems of Sylvia Plath and Charles Simic.

What do we remember about childhood? And how do we write about it, without feeling trapped in the past?
 
Ian McMillan talks to poet Don Paterson about music as a mnemonic tool, his youthful attraction to the art of origami, and the perils of confectionary. He talks to writer Sally Bayley about her sequence of books that capture the language fragments and stories from a childhood where facts were 'thin on the ground' - and about the part Shakespeare and his characters play in her latest book 'No Boys Play Here'. And Donovan McAbee, professor and poet, also joins Ian to explore the influence of childhood experiences on the work of Serbian-born poet Charles Simic - who became Poet Laureate of the US (writing in his fourth language), and died earlier this year. We also hear a poem from the BBC archive - Sylvia Plath's 'Purdah'.

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.

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