Woods, Weeds and Wildflowers: Nature Poetry

The celebrated writer Daniel Mendelsohn on his acclaimed translation of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. Poet Lydia Unsworth on finding inspiration for her new collection, Stay Awhile, in ring roads, shopping centres, and cooling towers.BBC New Generation Thinker, Joe Shute, on us ...  Show more

The poems that nourish us, and the myths that nourish poems. What can a connection with a mythical figure give us, or a legendary flower? Ian McMillan is joined by Zeus, Poseidon, the Green Man, the trees of Under Milk Wood, and Wordsworth's favourite flower - courtesy of The Ver ...  Show more

This week, AE Stallings, the new Oxford professor of poetry, on the lives of poets; and Ann Kennedy Smith considers the different faces of Cornwall.'Sleeping on islands: A life in poetry', by Andrew Motion'The American poet laureate: A history of US poetry and the state', by Amy ...  Show more

Poet Franny Choi knows that marginalized communities have been facing apocalypses forever. But in her new book, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, she uses their survival as a way to look forward. In this episode, she tells NPR's Leila Fadel how understanding that pai ...  Show more

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining" and the work of a new generation of poet ...  Show more

This week, Elizabeth Lowry is impressed by a study of Hardy’s late-life love poetry; and TLS science editor Sam Graydon on his ‘mosaic’ biography of Einstein‘Woman much missed: Thomas Hardy, Emma Hardy, and poetry’, by Mark Ford‘Einstein in time and space: a life in 99 particles’ ...  Show more