Â鶹Éç

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the Â鶹Éç's poetry archive and chooses The Reindeer Poets:

Andrew McGibbon explores the poetry, song and yoiking of the indigenous Sámi people who live across the Western European Arctic - a region including Russia's Kola Peninsula, Norway, Finland and Sweden. 

The relationship between the traditional epic yoik songs and contemporary poetry is explored, along with the multimedia approach that several contemporary Sámi poets and artists choose for their creative expression. The yoik is the distinctive form of cultural expression for the Sámi people and comparable to the traditional chanting of some First Nations in the Northern American continent.

The United Nations designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, and the programme features Mikkal Morottaja, aka Amoc, a poet who raps in Inari Sámi - a language spoken by fewer than 300 people in the world. He raps about Father Christmas being overwhelmed with selfish Christmas demands.

Sámi poetry takes tradition seriously, looking back to find the way forward, and giving a group of people in the Arctic north a voice.

Featuring the sounds of melting and retreating ice in the Arctic along with the sounds of creatures living under the ice as an active, low volume soundtrack audible throughout the programme.

Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon.

Producers: Louise Morris and Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4 first broadcast in 2019.