Poetry Extra: Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets

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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

Poetry Extra: Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands

Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands

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

Daljit Nagra selects Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands with poems from Nottinghamshire.  From 2018.

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses Tongue and Talk - The Dialect Poets: East Midlands with poems from Nottinghamshire.  

Writer James Walker unearths the dialect poetry of the Nottinghamshire miners who penned their verse underground in the county where he was born and bred. 

Through the humour of poems like Miner's Dream and Pity Pony, James explores a language used almost exclusively by miners and finds retired pitmen still reciting pit talk poetry in pubs and other venues across Nottinghamshire. 

He says: 'these men cry regularly at this poetry. Big retired pit men getting all emotional. It's quite an experience.' 

As part of the programme, James visits the former home of famous Nottinghamshire novelist and poet DH Lawrence where he meets mining historian and former miner David Amos. He also talks to Natalie Braber, Associate Professor at Nottingham Trent University about her research into pit talk and dialects, language and identity.

James hears some of the poems penned underground, translates the dialect and tries to understand what made so many miners turn to poetry. 

He also discovers how dialect pit poetry is being kept alive by forming the lyrics to new folk music. 

The programme also explores the Nottinghamshire dialect more widely including the use of the greeting 'duck'.  

Plus a performance by Nottinghamshire dialect poet Bridie Squires about the local word 'mardy'. 

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2018.

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