Peter Mackay, Tishani Doshi, Scanner, Lorna Goodison

The Verb

Ian McMillan's guests are the Scottish Makar Peter Mackay, Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison, as well as Indian dancer and poet Tishani Doshi, and the musician Scanner.

Scanner lets us into the baffling and mysterious 'poetry' of album titles by Autechre, Aphex Twin and other electronic music artists. Scanner has worked with Laurie Anderson, and Pauline Oliveros amongst other artists, as well as creating sound design for installations at museums, at an airport and for dancers at the London Olympics. For this week's Verb Scanner has created sound design for poems by Peter Mackay, inflected with uncertainty and nostalgia

We hear new poetry by Peter Mackay, in Gaelic and English, written in response to 'O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast' by Robert Burns. Peter explains why Burns is a great poet for uncertain times, and why the Gaelic word 'ta' is so useful. His poems can be also heard at the Poetry Jukebox, at the Linenhall Library in Belfast (part of a set of curated poems by ten different writers responding to work in the 'Fragments of Scottish Poetry Project').

Queen's Gold Medal winning poet, and former Poetry Laureate of Jamaica Lorna Goodison explains why Miss Lou, (the ground-breaking champion of nation language in Jamaica, and a good friend to Lorna) is a key character in her new version of Dante's Inferno (Carcanet).

Indian Poet and dancer Tishani Doshi presents the next in our recurring series 'The Neon Line' - where we celebrate a stand-out line from a poem, and work out why it's powerful, beautiful, or memorable. Tishani also shares new poetry that explores the connection between human emotions and the natural world.

https://scannerdot.com/ https://www.tishanidoshi.com/ https://linenhall.com/event/launch-of-the-mcadam-poetry-jukebox/