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Verb regular Kate Fox has been thinking about the connections between humour, poetry and philosophy. She thinks humour isn’t given the philosophical status it deserves, and she’s laying the blame firmly at the feet of Aristotle and René Descartes. Kate explains why she wrote her PhD as a comic dialogue rather than a monologue, to include an interrupting voice, and performs a poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche and the famous aphorism by the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus ‘You can never step into the same river twice’.

‘Opposites: Poems, Philosophy and Coffee’ (Valley Press) is a book by the poet Helen Mort and philospher Aaron Meskin. Inspired by their discussions over coffee, Helen wrote poems in response to academic philosophy papers (including one on tattooing, and another on itching and scratching), and then the authors of those papers offered responses to her poems. Helen reads ‘Christina at the Superbowl’ which explores ‘showing off’, and ‘Itch’ which was written whilst she was pregnant.

Whilst researching the 20th century French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus, Raymond was fascinated to learn that he was brought up by his mother and uncle who were both deaf. Raymond has been considering how Camus’ childhood experiences of silence may have impacted on his philosophy, and has written a brand new poem for The Verb called ‘Albert Camus’ Deaf Mother Speaks’. Raymond’s latest collection ‘The Perseverance’ is published by Penned in the Margins.

Nigel Warburton is a philosopher, the author of ‘A Little History of Philosophy’ and also the presenter of the ‘Philosophy Bites’ podcast, which has had around 40 million downloads. Nigel explains the thinking of poet and philosopher Lucretius, who felt that poetry could be used to ‘sweeten’ philosophy. He also considers the aphorism as a meeting point for poetry and philosophy, and reads a poem he wrote in the voice of the 18th century philosopher William Paley. Nigel’s next book, which is on death, will be published by Faber.