Terrifying Verse

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's poetry archive, and to mark Halloween, selects Terrifying Verse with Caroline Bird.

***And Daljit reads from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month, Stepmother by Helen Mort, choosing "On mothering ".

Caroline Bird celebrates the under-represented dark side of poetry, asking the poems that confront terror to step out of the shadows and into the light.

One of Caroline's poetic heroes, the poet Jane Hirshfield said ‘the poem carries love or terror or it carries nothing’. Whilst poetry about love is hardly news, the poetry of terror has been under-discussed and under-valued. This programme argues that terrifying verse is just as important and resonant. Caroline speaks to Jane Hirshfield about how love and terror balance each other out, the fear involved in the act of writing itself, and what use poetry is in face of the very real horror of the climate crisis.

And through the now commonplace, but disconcerting medium of Skype, Caroline speaks to Roger Robinson, TS Eliot Prize winner for his collection 'A Portable Paradise' about confronting the Grenfell Tower Disaster in his work, and writing about every parent's worst nightmare. Rachel Long discusses her childhood fear of biblical language, and the inherent creepiness of dolls. Rachel's' Debut poetry collection 'My Darling From The Lions' is published by Picador.

And what are nightmares? Caroline asks Dr Antonio Zadra from the University of Montreal, who has researched emotions and imagery common to nightmares and bad dreams.

The music in this programme is from the sound artist Sarah Angliss, who has collaborated with Caroline Bird to create a soundscape using Caroline's 'scariest poem yet', 'Emotional Reasoning'.

Caroline Bird was nominated for the TS Eliot Prize for her book 'In These Days of Prohibition'. All Caroline's books are published by Carcanet.

Presenter: Caroline Bird
Producer: Jessica Treen

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2020.