Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,01 Nov 2026,42 mins

Poetry to warm your cockles

The Verb

Available for 29 days

Ian McMillan with poems to warm your cockles and put fire in your belly - with guests John Agard, Michael Symmons Roberts, and Edith Hall. Fiery sexual attraction, and the destructive fires that influence our stories - Professor Edith Hall shares elemental insights from Homer, a mystery love poet, and tells us about her book 'Epic of the Earth'. Can new stories help us forge a much better relationship with fire and nature? Magical thinking on the moors, poetry to protect us from the flames, and an exploration of a divine essence that electrifies living things - Michael Symmons Roberts shares poems from his new collection 'Dogstar'. Three time winner of the CLIPPA award for children's poetry, John Agard reads remarkable poetry for children, where laughter spreads like wildfire - and he also performs a new poem in the persona of Guy Fawkes. And the unique talents of Douglas Dunn, influential Scottish poet, tender elegist, short story writer and compassionate teacher. Ian and Michael explore the glisks and gleams that animate some of Dunn's best loved poems. Produced by Faith Lawrence

Programme Website
More episodes