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This poem is taken from PN Review 100, Volume 21 Number 2, November - December 1994.

Five Poems Ian McMillan

The Grimness: BBC Radio 4, Tuesday, 8.30pm
We don't talk much
but when we talk
we talk about the Grimness.

Almost a cliché
in this muck.
Ah, the Grimness.
I remember it well.

    And now on Radio 4
    the poet Ian McMillan
    presents a feature
    on the Grimness of 1993
    and what it did.

    He talks to a number of people
    who survived it
    and some who
    didn't.

    Such a big microphone

It just sort of sat there
on the settee.
Occasionally it looked at
...


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