"The Verb"

[Guest]

A new thread for listeners to "The Verb", Radio 3's cabaret of the word, featuring the best poetry, new writing and performances. All contributions about the features on the show in the coming months are very welcome and the more creative and unexpected they are the better. Let's try to make the thread look, sound, and feel like the programme as well as exchanging interesting reflections.

Anyone who hasn't heard "The Verb" might like to click on the link to find more information. There are four more days to listen to last Friday's programme on the I-Player. Details of the next edition will be posted here later in the week. And if you like it, do keep a "regular eye" on the thread as I will be providing weekly updates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnsf

As you will see, the next live Verb from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in London is on 11th February 2011. The Bard of Barnsley Ian McMillan will be introducing brand new writing, performance, discussion and more. Guests include the cartoonist Peter Blegvad and the language spy Alex Horne. The link explains how you can obtain tickets.

[Globaltruth]

Here is Ian M talking about The Verb...

[Lateralthinking1]

Friday 21 January 2011

And here are the details of this week's programme:

Ian McMillan presents:

Poet David Harsent who introduces his new collection of poetry, Night. Featuring work originally commissioned for The Verb, the latest book tells of nightmares and dream-states far from the reassurance of the daylight.

A View of the House from the Back of the Garden - http://www.faber.co.uk/site-media/au..._the_house.mp3

The American writer Jonathan Safran Foer on the language of meat. What are sweetmeats? Why do we eat pork and not pig and what exactly is free-range?

Eating Animals - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRLRclXw2wI

Hannah Silva on pole-dancing and poetry.

You Said/I Said - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH5tIbtrViA

The storytelling comic Terry Saunders with disastrous relationship tales based on unhappy early experience.

Welcome to Terryland - http://terrysaunders.co.uk/

The Verb - 9.15pm-10pm, Radio 3.

[Lateralthinking1]

.....This was an interesting edition with some moving readings from David Harsent. The garden he has grown for us seems dark. But is the main character of Night a detective or a wanderer? Does a poet become him in his dreams or is he himself?

Jonathan Safran Foer feels comfortable with the term "free range". Some years vegetarian, some years omnivore, occasionally vegan since the age of ten, he questions what is Kosher. How much do we use words almost as comfort food to distance ourselves from the realities of meat? Find illumination in the interview with Ian, alas unaccompanied by cake.

Hannah Silva doesn't spend all her time hanging from a boat in the wind. She knows now how this can alter the voice of a poet. These days she prefers to be a pole dancer who delivers words when upside down. She won't literally be stripping. She will though be watching the audiences to her verbal gymnastics and developing a very good view of them.

Sue Hubbard might be the only poet who has had a poem painted over in blue by Network Rail. Fortunately, it was rescued on Facebook. The walk to the IMAX cinema can now again be a stride to a three-stanza series based on Eurydice.

Terry Saunders is a bloke who writes for people much like himself. This means that those who enjoy what he does are sometimes subversive yet mostly warm and romantic. Some say that he charts adventures of the modern mutation of love as it inflames in vain through the nostalgic hearts of ex-lovers. But the regular guy who was madly in love with Nathalie says it as we feel.

[Lateralthinking1]

Friday 28 January 2011

The details of this week's programme:

Ian McMillan presents:

The cellist Steven Isserlis performs excerpts from his musical fairy stories for children and characterises the distinctive storytelling voice of the cello.

Song of the Birds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k50emadHTJ4

The novelist David Vann sets out his theory that American writers unconsciously turn to Anglo-Saxon words when they're evoking landscape and scale.

Legend of a Suicide - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIui3...eature=related

Storyteller Rachel Rose Reid performs extracts from her show I am Hans Christian Andersen.

Plenty of Fish - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O6fjBzYec8

Writer Alison Carr introduces a new story about a man who has only a million words left to say - as told by his wife, who never stops talking.

Playwright - http://www.alisoncarr.co.uk/

The Verb - 9.15pm-10pm, Radio 3.

[Lateralthinking1]

It was all hands to the wheel late on Friday evening. Literally millions were heading home to catch "The Verb". If you missed it, this week's programme was jam packed with fascinating stories. And the sheer numbers of people who did tune in caused a surge on the National Grid.

Virtuoso celloist Steven Isserlis provided a musical setting to some familiar-sounding fairy tales. We were introduced to Cindercella, Goldipegs and Little Red Violin. According to Steven, violins are horrible little creatures. As he strung us further along with a tale of the Big Bad Cellos, there was charm to his wolfish humour. Later, Steven mentioned a bit of a stew between Beethoven and a waiter. Apparently Wagner wouldn't have seen the funny side of it even if most composers would have done. As for the waiter, we were left to wonder as he licked all the gravy off his chin.

The immensely talented Rachel Rose Reid isn't Hans Christian Andersen. She is a multifaceted version of him, a folk ballad singer and a colourful storyteller. She twists myth, music and legend through urban eyes. If her telling of fairy tales starts dizzily, she is soon travelling into the shadow, a strange place to be when in search of happy endings. Rachel recognizes though that the essence of our lives is not as portrayed in glossy magazines. With her dramatic poise and immaculate timing, Rachel is definitely a star in the making. There is in her extraordinary dexterity wholehearted conviction.

Alaskan novelist David Vann became interested in Old English when he realised that Chaucer was an impressive show-off. David has traced the path from Chaucer‘s “two languages” through Melville to the contemporary American novel. Here we find the paring down of language and distinctive cadences of good old Anglo-Saxon and this more often than not signifies the main emphasis in a great story. The greatest American writing is rural and dirty and low and focused on the landscape. Still, David shows in his own work that it can also be about headaches, particularly on a rain-drenched island.

From the North East of England, there was a very funny, if unlikely, yarn from the prolific Alison Carr. Her character Carol has an Anglo Saxon turn of phrase. Well, you would, wouldn’t you when being told by a “cheeky bloody sod” of a doctor that your husband has only a million words left to say. Carol is not at all happy about the diagnosis, so much so that she can’t stop herself from talking about it. “We go through words like water, don’t we, if you think about it” Carol says. How true. More power to her elbow.

[Lateralthinking1]

Friday 4 February 2011

Perhaps I spoke too soon about surges. I have been without phone and broadband since the early hours of Wednesday along with most of my neighbours. Reconnection not until Saturday or Monday apparently. Extraordinary.

Anyway, for now, just a quick link to tonight's edition of "The Verb" which looks like it will be another good'un:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y282s

The Verb - 9.15pm-10pm, Radio 3.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...yipes Lateral i just popped in to say hi and express solidarity etc but tonight's prog looks a real downer ......

i met mr macmillan at a reading and band event once, nice guy and i like the way he does barnsley compared to parky etc ...

[Lateralthinking1]

Hi Calum, I'm back courtesy of Talk Talk or is it BT? It is so difficult these days to find the lines of accountability. One of those good organisations blasts out twenty-five minutes of the Nolan Sisters instead of providing information. You guess which one as I look up the word "dongle" in the dictionary following Global's kind advice.

Many thanks to you for the good wishes. You are right. This week's programme was very different from the previous two. I wasn't exactly looking forward to three quarters of an hour about illness but some of the writing was very good indeed. More a little later in the week if modern Britain manages to survive until then, Lat. :cool2:

[Lateralthinking1]

Friday 4 February 2011

There is still a chance to hear this edition on the I-Player.

The full details of the week's programme:

Ian McMillan presented:

Narratives of illness or pathographies with the poet Gwyneth Lewis and the memoirist Sarah Manguso.

A Hospital Odyssey - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...s-1882266.html

The Disease That Stole My Youth - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...system-illness

The poet, philosopher and former medic Raymond Tallis reflected on the importance of stories about sickness for the medical community, patients and the wider reader.

A Head For Heights - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...ts-807533.html

Neil Vickers who teaches on the first MA in Literature and Medicine focussed on journalism, blogs and new boundaries in terms of discussing disease and medical procedures.

Coleridge and the Doctors - http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/gen...=9780199271177

And Kevin Jackson discussed the work of Susan Sontag, Thom Gunn and others who've written about illness in an illuminating way.

Being Earnest - http://www.newstatesman.com/books/20...diaries-philip

The Verb - 9.15pm-10pm, Radio 3.

[Lateralthinking1]

This summary was never going to be easy. As Raymond Tallis remarked not far from the end of the programme, how can language ever be really adequate for conveying the realities of six hours of pain. Neil Vickers quoted Dennis Potter. Potter had said that illness made him look at the world very differently. A way, he said, that he would never be able to communicate to the able bodied. And yet this edition, while often uncomfortable, was never wholly harrowing. In some senses the words of the writers were educational but the fact that they were words also enabled a softening of the blow. As language negotiated the landscape of medical science, there was in that essential adaptability a great deal of the humane.

We discovered that writing about illness is almost everywhere. It can be found in the work of the well-known romantic poets, in library textbooks, in newspaper columns, in recently written memoirs and in the most obscure of blogs. How did those in the studio feel when they read columns about illness in the press? Some felt that they might have that illness. Others were grateful that they were well. Uncertainty perhaps on both sides of that bed and we were asked to note how medical problems affected partners too. The constraints on them when a spouse was unwell could often be a virtual illness. They lived it as if it was their own.

Sarah Manguso's account of living with a rare auto-immune disease involved spare and fractured writing. Here were words that would not ordinarily be considered poetic - "apheresis", "plasma", "albumin", "sterilsed", "blood vessels", "oncology". But as we heard in her tight prose how fluid, thirty degrees colder than her body, was entered slowly into her system, we were also told of the taste of wintergreen candy. Another patient placed shampoo on her wig as if it were her hair. This provided the listener with a very vivid picture at a mixture of emotional temperatures. We felt for her. We might also have felt a little hypochondria but for Sarah this would be a reassuringly well-developed sense of empathy. A small risk maybe for an informed liberation.

Gwyneth Lewis took us on an epic journey into a mythical hospital. The husband in the book is acutely unwell and we heard of his condition from his wife's perspective. While fictitious, the story, presented in five stanzas, mirrors Gwyneth's own personal experience. The odyssey sprang from the common sight in hospitals of sea paintings but writing often stopped her going mad with worry. Again, we have the language of science, but this time on a broader canvas and with some imagery of science fantasy - "nanosecond", "protons", "quantum mechanics", "probability wave", "neutrinos". To clarify perspectives and to provide the human touch, we were advised how important it is to have signposts in a landscape. Illness in a loved one can almost be dispatches from a faraway place so, as Gwyneth says, "he'd set sail without her on an internal sea". And, in one of the book's epithets "the handing over to a stranger the care of a life precious beyond computation may be one of the greatest earthly trials"

Kevin Jackson discussed the work of Susan Sontag, a cancer sufferer who had become a ferocious researcher in seeking treatment for her illness. Initially it was not clear from her book, "Illness as a Metaphor", that the writing came from her own experience. That work though was one of a small number which paved the way towards more openness about illness in autobiographical writing. From the late 1980s, with Gillian Rose and other authors working in this area, concerns about illness being associated with punishment or shame became less prevalent, although it was noted that in the time of Byron and Keats it had often been depicted almost in romantic terms. Myth was the common linkage throughout history. Kevin read movingly from a book by Tom Lubbock, an extremely gifted writer and art critic, who lost the ability to put words together without overt conscious thought. This was an especially cruel symptom for Tom and it was admirable that he had still been able to write so brilliantly.

This brought to mind some comments that Raymond had made earlier in the programme. He had spoken of the practical experience of medics. Time constraints did not enable them to see the entire picture of a patient's condition. To maximise the opportunities for providing the most appropriate treatment, they had to be focussed fairly narrowly on the illness itself, while attempting to get a glimpse of the broader perspectives. There was then perhaps a link between the conscious thinking of Tom, the research of Susan, the tight language of Sarah, the wish of Gwyneth to clarify perspectives and the notes of a doctor. Each believed that a conveying of any condition is essential. But as Neil Vickers said, if he had an illness he would look to writing of whatever kind to find empathy in a shared condition and it is to all of these writers' credit that each has also provided this insightfully in their own measured ways.

[Lateralthinking1]

Friday 11 February 2011

The details of this week's programme, live from the Radio Theatre in London:

Ian McMillan presides:

The novelist, screenwriter and super-fan William Boyd marks the centenary of the birth of the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Must We Dream Our Dreams? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-bishop-brazil

The novelist and games writer Naomi Alderman campaigns for better writing in the world of online gaming.

Disobbedienza - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkkTV...eature=related

The resident eartoonist Peter Blegvad presents another bemusing, amusing sound sculpture and comedian.

Leviathan - http://www.leviathan.co.uk/

Language spy Alex Horne is on the trail of words with verve.

Death Defying World Record Attempt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Wyq...eature=related

The Verb - 9.15pm-10pm, Radio 3.

[Lateralthinking1]

A peculiar edition, this, in front of a live audience. It was definitely a pot pourri. It might have benefited from a thread.

William Boyd described why he was a "superfan" of Elizabeth Bishop. Her writing was deceptively simple, conversational and quietly risky. In her poems, which were often redrafted over a period of two years, every word was carefully chosen. She was a poet who other writers appreciated. I was reminded of Jane Austen whose writing was consistently precise. Many sing her praises and that always baffles me. Personally, I prefer writing that is either more lyrical or streetwise. There is no doubt that Bishop had a troubled life which provided the basis to effective writing. Her poems, though, while thought-provoking, didn't sweep me off my feet.

A sudden gear change to the resident eartoonist didn't work for me at all. Peter Blegvad's piece, "On imaginary media", invited the listener to consider a world with a "virtual afterlife". There you could meet loved ones, achieve instant gratification, press a switch into a range of different emotions, and even have the option of suicide. Supposedly humourous, it sounded like a nightmare to me and I didn't feel that it was in the best of taste. Besides, surely we already have this machinery. It's called the Coalition Government.

Naomi Alderman, novelist, journalist, games writer, inventor of Perspex City, etc., is a modern type. I could see her being successful in board rooms up and down the land. She has the prerequisite Californian mixture of virtual reality and a love of the fantasy world. Yes, I know it's my age. I have never had the slightest inclination to play a video game. I will be furious with myself if I ever go there. It isn't just that these games are overly commercial and trite. My blood tends to run cold when I hear people joking about killing 743 people in "Red Dead Redemption". Anyhow, Naomi's main concern was how the writing for such games could be improved. My advice would be to create a story that writes them all out of existence. This could then be turned into "actual reality". People might just begin tentatively to use their own imaginations.

Finally, Alex Horne told us the history of St Valentine in 30 seconds, gave us the origins of "roses are red, violets are blue" in about fifteen, and read out no fewer than three of the lamest verses he had found in a selection of valentines cards. A nice guy but I didn't laugh even if members of the audience chuckled. Perhaps they had just looked at the time on their watches and realised they could still get the last bus home.

Oh dear. I'm really sorry Ian. This one just wasn't for me. I was disappointed. I needed the smelling salts to stay awake. The three previous editions were so much better.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Lateral thank you for letting me not listen to it .... i am deeply grateful for your sharp perception of these presentations [they confirm my worst fears!] ...

i have just discovered this, may have read it as a lad but missed it completely, for me a true example of a masterpiece in essay from:

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye

now where is the writing of this calibre in the contemporary milieu?

[french frank]

Lateral's critiques here are so good. We all react in our own way, but even when he's enthusiastic I find his posts a satisfactory succedaneum for listening to the programme (and shorter) ...