Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Poetry Programme (RTÉ Radio 1) Saturdays @ 7.00 pm

The new Poetry Programme is now in full swing on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday evenings at 7.00 pm. (See link opposite). Replacing the long-running The Enchanted Way (some editons of which are still available in streaming and download formats on the RTÉ website), the new programme, as its name suggests, is somewhat wider in remit and possibility. As well as featuring regular one-to-one interviews with poets, Irish and international, discussing new work, the programme will also host debates on a wide range of topics from tips on how to get published, to poem plays, to the idea of the musician as poet. The first three programmes in the series have included items on using actors to popularise poetry (with Josephine Hart, an interview with the poet Tony Curtis (on the publication of his New and Selected Poems: The Well in the Rain), a panel discussion with Peter Sirr and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanaín on the shortlist for the 2006 TS Eliot Prize, and a panel discussion/review with Eva Bourke and Tom Conaty of Don Patterson's Orpheus, his version of Rainer Maria Rilke's faous sonnet sequence. Forthcoming programmes will look at the subjects of poetry as a form of protest, Valentines and love poetry in general, and the centenary of the birth of W.H. Auden.
Further information on the show, and an archive of previous episodes, can be found on the RTÉ website, here.

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