Country of origin | United Kingdom |
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Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
Poetry Please is a weekly radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in which listeners request poems, which are then read by a cast of actors. [1] It is broadcast on Sunday afternoons and repeated the following Saturday night. [1] The current presenter is Roger McGough, himself a poet. Performers regularly include some of the top names in British acting, such as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Prunella Scales and Timothy West.
The programme marked its 40th year in 2019 and is known to be the longest running poetry programme broadcast anywhere in the world.[ citation needed ]
McGough's predecessor as presenter of Poetry Please was the Irish broadcaster and writer Frank Delaney. He described his pleasure in working on the programme, saying: [2]
It meant was that I was now going to be working with the most beautiful material ever written in the English language, spoken by the most beautiful voices currently working in the English language, and that was nothing but a joy in prospect. It's wonderfully democratic, because you open the postbag and there is a request there for a poem you have either never heard of, by a poet whose name is completely strange to you, or something you have adored since childhood and whose phrases have been part of your many inner soundtracks, and either of those is a delight.
As of 2013, the most frequently-requested and broadcast poem was Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. [1]
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.
Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a British poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, resigning in 2019. She is the first woman, the first Scottish-born poet and the first known LGBT poet to hold the position.
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Roger Joseph McGough is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please, as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one of the leading members of the Liverpool poets, a group of young poets influenced by Beat poetry and the popular music and culture of 1960s Liverpool. He is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and President of the Poetry Society.
Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson.
Pamela Ayres MBE is an English poet, comedian, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to appearances on other TV and radio shows, a one-woman touring stage show and performing before The Queen.
Emma Thomas "Ruth" Pitter, CBE, FRSL was a British poet.
Charles Stanley Causley CBE FRSL was a British poet, school teacher and writer. His work is often noted for its simplicity and directness as well as its associations with folklore, legends and magic, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.
The Liverpool poets are a number of influential 1960s poets from Liverpool, England, influenced by 1950s Beat poetry. They were involved in the 1960s Liverpool scene that gave rise to The Beatles.
Ian McMillan is an English poet, journalist, playwright, and broadcaster. He is known for his strong and distinctive Yorkshire accent and his incisive, friendly interview style on programmes such as BBC Radio 3's The Verb. He lives in Darfield, the village of his birth.
The Mersey Sound is an anthology of poems by Liverpool poets Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri first published in 1967, when it launched the poets into "considerable acclaim and critical fame". It went on to sell over 500,000 copies, becoming one of the bestselling poetry anthologies of all time. The poems are characterised by "accessibility, relevance and lack of pretension", as well as humour, liveliness and at times melancholy. The book was, and continues to be, widely influential with its direct and often witty language, urban references such as plastic daffodils and bus conductors, and frank, but sensitive depictions of intimacy.
Colin Peter Morgan was a British poet, lyricist and television documentary author and presenter.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Daljit Nagra FRSL is a British poet whose debut collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover! – a title alluding to W. H. Auden's Look, Stranger!, D. H. Lawrence's Look! We Have Come Through! and by epigraph also to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" – was published by Faber in February 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK, and often employ language that imitates the English spoken by Indian immigrants whose first language is Punjabi, which some have termed "Punglish". He currently works part-time at JFS School in Kenton and visits schools, universities and festivals where he performs his work. He was appointed chair of the Royal Society of Literature in November 2020.
Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist.
Katherine Rundell is an English author and academic. She is the author of Rooftoppers, which in 2015 won both the overall Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story, and was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal. She is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and has appeared as an expert guest on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Poetry Please, and Seriously....