The Verb - Millions Poet/WNP Barbellion/Beirut 39/Black Wine/Alice Munro

Millions Poet Poet Hissa Hilal has just been named runner up in the UAE's wildly popular 'Millions Poet' competition for her combative political verse using an old Bedouin poetic style. Clinton Bailey, an expert on Bedouin poetry and culture, tells Ian McMillan about the history of the form. WNP Barbellion Kevin Jackson profiles the obscure but brilliant diarist whose 'Journal of a Disappointed Man' has been called one of "the most moving diaries ever created." With readings by Tobias Beer. Beirut 39 Palestinian novelist Ala Hlehel and Adania Shibli discuss an energetic new collection of contemporary Arab writing and consider how their situation as Palestinian writers living in Israel impacts on their work. Black Wine The novelist Rupert Thomson, author of new memoir This Party's Got to Stop, tells the story of how he won over 'the most terrifying waiters in Barcelona' at a bar famous for its Patatas Bravas. Alice Munro Celebrated American novelist Lorrie Moore on her passion for the master short-story writer Alice Munro, winner of last year's International Man Booker Prize and the woman who Margaret Atwood has called 'an international literary saint.'.