Back for a brand new series with new presenter, Olivia O’Leary.
Olivia O’Leary takes over the helm of the Poetry Programme and in this first episode poets Thomas McCarthy and Sarah Clancy join her to talk about politics and poetry.
To illustrate the political power of poetry, Olivia recounts the story of a time when poetry caused a row in Dáil Éireann between Conor Cruise O’Brien and Charles Haughey, when it was considered dangerous to quote Yeats’ poem Easter 1916. We hear poems about poverty, women’s rights, race and hunger as Thomas McCarthy and Sarah Clancy read some of their own work and tell us about other political poems that they admire.
The programme ends with a preview of the voices of some of the poets who will be heard in the new series as they attempt to answer the question ‘Where does the spark for a poem come from?’
A Rockfinch production for RTÉ.
Saturday 7.30pm on RTÉ Radio 1.
