The Verb - 13/06/2008

Ian McMillan presents the weekly cabaret of language, focusing on ideas of exile and finding sanctuary in writing. He talks to Emmanuel Jal, a performance poet who explains how words have helped him overcome his traumatic past as a boy soldier in Sudan, forced into warfare at just eight years old. Meanwhile, writers Nikita Lalwani and Mahfuz Ali have collaborated on a poem about exile by playing a game of poetic consequences. They each wrote their verses separately and only saw the last line of the previous verse. They see and read an extract from the completed poem for the first time. David Marriott talks about his poetry and the books which have inspired it, plus a new eartoon from Peter Blegvad and the latest in the series on Lost Nobel Literature Laureates, featuring Nelly Sachs.