麻豆约拍

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the 麻豆约拍's radio poetry archive selecting The Fisher Poets Gathering in which Katrina Porteous visits Astoria, Oregon, where each February commercial fishermen and women gather for a festival of poems, songs and stories they've written about their lives.

Fisher poets come from all over America - Florida, Maine, Chesapeake Bay, Alaska. These tough characters, who all know someone who has drowned, stand up and read their poems. Hundreds listen: there are sessions in bars and readings all over town. There are workshops, exhibitions, and the community radio station broadcasts proceedings, live.

In 2014, a poet came from beyond the United States. Katrina Porteous lives in the Northumbrian fishing village of Beadnell. For years she has worked with, recorded and written about her local fishing people.

She hears astonishing work from Dave Densmore, on his boat Cold Stream; from Moe Bowstern, an extraordinarily prolific writer about the lives of fisher women; from Richard King who fishes in Alaska, and farms in Hawaii. She meets, too, Lloyd Montgomery, an Aleut fisher poet. And wherever they are from, Katrina discovers, fisher poets share concerns over sustainability - of fish stocks, their communities, their way of life.

Producer: Julian May

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014.