As part of this year’s National Poetry Day on October 6th, all of the BBC Local Radio stations across England and the Channel Islands will be featuring a unique piece of poetry written specifically for National Poetry Day, an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation.
BBC Local Poets will feature 40 poets and spoken word artists from across the country who have been commissioned to write a poem from the viewpoint of a local landmark or iconic object.
For BBC Radio Merseyside, Maria Isakova Bennett has written her poem about the Ferry on the Mersey, which can be viewed here.
The poem will be featured as part of BBC Radio Merseyside’s coverage of National Poetry Day. Maria will read her poem out on the mid morning show with Sean Styles and will talk about where she found the inspiration for her poem.
Maria Isakova Bennett said: “I chose the ferry as the voice of my poem because the ferry is part of the history of Liverpool, is world famous – one of the reasons tourists come to Liverpool – and is part of the life story of its inhabitants, including my own. To my mind the ferry is inseparable from the river, so my poem is about the Mersey too.
My poem focuses on the mood of the river as I recently experienced it when on the ferry, and I’ve aimed to bring out this mood in the voice by creating the idea of being able to take the river with us as we travel, almost that the river becomes a part of us.”
Maria lives and works in Liverpool and has had poetry and reviews published in, amongst others, Antiphon, Bare Fiction, Crannóg, Envoi, Manchester Review, Orbis, Southword, Tears in the Fence, and The Interpreter’s House. She has been highly commended in the Gregory O’ Donoghue Poetry Competition, shortlisted in the Munster Literature Chapbook Competition, and awarded first prize in the Ver Open Competition judged by Clare Pollard in 2014. This year Maria has been shortlisted and placed in several International Poetry Competitions including Wigtown, Cinnamon Prizes, and Mslexia. Maria received second place in Liverpool Poised Pen, Wakefield Red Shed, and Wirral Festival of Firsts. Maria works alongside poet Pauline Rowe on projects as part of Mersey Care, and collaborates with poet Michael Brown on projects in galleries on Merseyside.
The inspiration for this exciting initiative came from Becca Bryers at BBC Radio Leicester who commissioned each of the individual poems with the support of National Poetry Day and National Poetry Day partner Apples and Snakes.
Becca Bryers said: “This is an exciting opportunity for all the BBC Local Radio stations to get involved in National Poetry Day. I’ve been so impressed with the poets passionate approach to the project and the calibre of their finished pieces. There’s such a brilliant variety of poem subjects too, from Romford Dogs to Lincolnshire sausages! I hope that our listeners will be inspired by hearing a piece of poetry celebrating where they live, written by an artist who knows and loves the area as much as them.”
In addition to the 40 poems that are being read out on each of the BBC Local Radio stations, there will be a 41st poem performed on the Mark Forrest All England Show to be broadcast across all BBC Local Radio stations from 7pm. Bridie Squires from Nottingham will create an additional poem which will bring together all the themes of the day and include as many of the local landmarks as possible.
National Poetry Day, the annual mass celebration of poetry and all things poetical, takes place on Thursday 6 October 2016. To celebrate this year’s theme – Messages – people all over the country are being invited to “Say it with a poem”.
It’s the day when poetry jumps off the bookshelf and onto the streets, schools, businesses, and airwaves, with hundreds of pop-up poetry events anticipated around the UK. Last year, NASA broadcast a poem into space, O2 sent customers poems by text, and even Michelle Obama and JK Rowling were tweeting about it.
