BBC Radio 4’s Beyond Belief is a long-running discussion series about the place and nature of faith in today’s world. In this special programme, recorded live at the Bradford Literature Festival, presenter Giles Fraser is joined by a literary panel to consider the relationship between poetry and the divine. Some of our most feted poets, from Rumi to John Donne, Tagore to William Blake – have found that poetry opens up a space to explore the divine. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare praised the poet’s eye, glancing ‘from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven’ as ‘imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown’.
In front of a live audience, a fascinating panel of contemporary poets and poetry lovers join Giles to discuss whether poetry can help bridge the gap between the physical and metaphysical world. Reading some of their own work, they’ll also share their own relationships between art and faith.
Panel guests to be announced.
