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Poetry Please: Goblin Market

As part of our All Request Weekend, listeners suggest Poetry Please: Goblin Market from the 麻豆社's poetry archive. From 2014.

**** This programme has been suggested by listeners Sue Evans and Tim Varley as part of 麻豆社 Radio 4 Extra鈥檚 All Request Weekend. **

***And Daljit reads from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month: To an Unknown Receiver by poet and editor Erica Hesketh. A collection of sonnets considering humanity's creativity and capacity for hope.

In 'Poetry Please' Roger McGough features the poems of Christina Rossetti. Shirley Henderson gives a beguiling rendition of what is arguably Rossetti's most famous poem 'Goblin Market', published in 1862. It's a heady fairy tale about temptation involving two sisters, Laura and Lizzie.

The poem has a sexual undertone and a menacing quality that lurks among the persistent pleas of the fruit selling Goblin men to 'come buy, come buy.' Visits to your greengrocer may never be the same again.

There is also a reading of another of Rossetti's much requested and moving poems 'Remember,' as well as a lesser known poem of pilgrimage, 'Up-hill'.

Producer: Sarah Langan

First broadcast on 麻豆社 Radio 4 in 2014.

**** To nominate a programme from the 麻豆社 poetry archive that you would like to hear again, please email radio4extra@bbc.co.uk and tell us details of why you'd like to hear it.****

30 minutes

Last on

Mon 31 Aug 2026 02:00

Broadcasts

  • Sun 22 Nov 2015 17:00
  • Mon 23 Nov 2015 05:00
  • Sun 30 Aug 2026 07:00
  • Sun 30 Aug 2026 12:00
  • Sun 30 Aug 2026 18:00
  • Mon 31 Aug 2026 02:00