Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Refuge and National Poetry Day

Refuge and National Poetry Day

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Refuge and National Poetry Day

Poets Momtaza Mehri, Julianknxx and historian Jesús Sanjurjo join Matthew Sweet.

National Poetry Day on 5 October has the theme of refuge this year.  Matthew Sweet and guests explore where we find refuge in poetry and music. What does it mean to have to flee?

Loss and belonging are explored in an installation at the Barbican Centre in London from Sierra Leonean poet and artist/filmmaker Julianknxx which hears choirs and musicians from cities across the world voice a single refrain: ‘We are what’s left of us’. Momtaza Mehri has been Young People's Poet Laureate for London. A poem from her collection Bad Diaspora Poems is picked out in a selection for this year's National Poetry Day on October 5th, which has the theme of refuge. Matthew Sweet explores with them where we find refuge and hears from the academic Dr Jesús Sanjurjo about refugees from Spain who arrived in Somers Town in Camden in 1823.

Producer: Julian Siddle 

Chorus in Rememory of Flight by Julianknxx runs until 11 Feb 2024 at The Curve in the Barbican Centre, London. 

He also has a film exploring Sierra Leone in the exhibition A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography on at Tate Modern until Jan 14 2024 and an artwork on show in an exhibition about Sankofa curated by Ekow Eshun on in Accra, Ghana.

On the National Poetry Day website https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/  you can find the text and teaching resources relating to the poem by Momtaza Mehri Brief Dialogue Between the Self-declared East African Micronations of Regent Park Estate (Toronto) & Regent’s Park Estate (London)

Dr Jesús Sanjurjo is an Early Career Fellow of the Leverhulme and Isaac Newton Trusts at the University of Cambridge.

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