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Verb regular Ira Lightman is playing the fool this week with a new commission ‘The Monarch and the Jester’. Ira’s poem uses stories of Jesters from around the world in Beatrice K. Otto’s book ‘Fools are Everywhere’. But is the poet a fool? Ira’s books are available from Knives Forks and Spoons press.

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The writer Rob Doyle celebrates the work of the forgotten Irish writer, Fredrick Mulligan, who created the ‘Paddyslasher’ genre of fiction in the 1980’s before dying tragically young. Rob’s new book ‘this is the ritual’ (Bloomsbury) comes out of his fascination of what it means to dedicate your life to writing, and blends stories of writers real and imagined.

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Poet and performer James Massiah dropped by The Verb on his whistlestop tour of Â鶹Éç Radio for ‘Turn It Up’. James writes ‘New Funk Poetry’, aiming his pen at the things we perceive as low culture. For The Verb, he’s written a poem about what makes us laugh. James laughs at the dark things in life, and wants to make us move from our seats rather than just type LOL.

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Comedy writer Jesse Armstrong’s TV credits include Peep Show, The Thick of It, Fresh Meat and now he’s turned his hand to prose with his first novel ‘Love Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals’ (Vintage). For Jesse poetry and comedy writing have much in common, sharing word order and brevity – you can’t paraphrase a good poem or a good joke.

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