A Media-Specific Analysis of Candlelight Poetry on the Radio: The World’s Longest-running Radio Poetry Show

Abstract

Since 1967 Jan van Veen has been reciting poems for the Dutch radio program Candlelight, the world’s longest-running radio poetry show. Candlelight poems almost always contain end rhymes and revolve around emotional themes. This article examines Candlelight poetry specifically as radio poetry. Three aspects are explored: the wide reach, the accessibility and the meaningful relationship between the linguistic and material code of the poems. The results of a survey conducted among Candlelight listeners are presented. And a material reading is given of a Candlelight poem, recited during a memorial broadcast on the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine in 2014.