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William Letford reads a poem that captures the sound of squabbling birds and his experience of working on rooftops (including the creatures and the aerial perspective that are woven through his writing). He also reads a poem inspired by his involvement in the Indigenous Language Poetry Exchange British Council project. As part of the exchange, William travelled to Indonesia and wrote alongside a group of its poets. Williams’s latest poetry collection is ‘Bevel’ (Carcanet).

Jamil Massa is an Indonesian poet, short-story and essay writer. His poems are collected in the anthologies ‘Sayembara Tebu’ (2016) and ‘Pemanggil Air’ (2017). For The Verb Jamil reads a poem about a game called ‘Bilubilulu’ which is also the Hulontalo ( Jamil’s home dialect) word for quail’.

Adil Latefi is one of the poets from North Africa who took part in a British Council collaboration in Tunisia called ‘The Illuminated Paths’ ; here he shares work that inspired translation workshops in this country - a poem that takes the form of a philosophical debate. He also reads a poem which details an argument between a man and a woman; Ian invites the guests to work out the tone of the argument without access to a translation from Darija (Adil’s native dialect).

Clare is an acclaimed poet and  the editor of the magazine ‘Modern Poetry in Translation’. She shares her involvement in the British Council’s Maghreb project ‘The Illuminated Paths’ with The Verb by reading a version of Adil Latefi’s poem – one which emerged from a translation workshop on the day The Verb was recorded. Clare also gives us a preview of her forthcoming pamphlet  ‘The Lives of the Female Poets’ (Bad Betty Press)  which uses her knowledge of poetic lives from around the world to create an alphabet of reasons why many women writers are not better known.

Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker. Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, she is a recipient of the Cholmondley Award and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  Imtiaz explores the way her experience as a film-maker influenced her poem ‘The Right Word’ and reads a brand new poem ‘Ode to O’. Her latest collection is ‘Luck is the Hook’ (Bloodaxe).