Podcasts Culture Front Row Africa Oye, Queer Poetry, Maggie Shipstead

Africa Oye, Queer Poetry, Maggie Shipstead

Published: June 6, 2022, 8:30 p.m.

Africa Oy\xe9, the UK's largest festival of music from the continent of Africa, celebrates its 30th anniversary in Liverpool's Sefton Park this month. Its Artistic Director, Paul Duhaney, discusses the festival's history and chooses three tracks of music that reflect Africa Oy\xe9's growth and reputation.

What is a queer poem? Poets Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan talk to Nick Ahad about how they explore that question in their new anthology, 100 Queer Poems - poems from across the twentieth century to the present day. It reflects the burgeoning range of recent queer poetry, and includes poets whose work is familiar, their queerness less so \u2013 Wilfred Owen, for instance.

Plus, Maggie Shipstead. In the latest of our interviews with authors shortlisted for the 2022 Women\u2019s Prize for Fiction, Nick talks to the author of Great Circle - the imagined life of a freedom-seeking woman pilot who embarks on a flight around the globe in 1950. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Photo: Africa Oy\xe9, 2014. Credit: Mark McNulty

Presenter: Nick Ahad\nProducer: Ekene Akalawu