麻豆社

Insects are often seen as pests, rather than poetic. Is it possible to write a poem that does flies or crickets justice?

In this episode, Simon Armitage, the poet laureate asks whether fruit flies get lonely and whether crickets have character - as he continues to explore what it means to capture other creatures in poetry.

In this episode Simon meets crickets at Queen Mary University of London (in the Chittka Bee Lab), and gets to know the fruit flies in a poem by Imtiaz Dharker.

Contributors:
Imtiaz Dharker shares extracts from her poem 'The Host' from 'Shadow Reader'
Philosopher Jonathan Birch is a Professor at the London School of Economics, working on animal sentience, and the relation between sentience and welfare.
Dr Sarah Skeels is a zoologist at Queen Mary University of London
Crickets at the Chittka Bee Lab

The haiku in this episode are all translations into English of haiku by the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa

Produced by Faith Lawrence
Mixed by Sharon Hughes (Shush)