Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A poet who won the Somerset Maugham and WH Smith Prizes and was hailed for writing some of the finest lyric poetry of the 20th century.
On the island
Eight records
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61
He's a very great actor. I haven't met him, but I do correspond... But a man of such gentleness and generosity and magnanimity
This goes back to childhood... I think it is possible that when my parents used to we were in the nursery and nanny and so on, and I think they used to go to dances sometimes.
Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495Favourite
I feel it almost heavenly music.
I would love to see the sally with the fringe on top... I saw it with that young man.
I would like a piece of that music because it brings it all back to me and the happiness.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Another high spot like Lepanto and [Rome] was seeing John Gielgud's Hamlet.
Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72a
I couldn't do without Beethoven... With Beethoven I feel that there's great humanity.
Gloria from La Messe de l'Annonciation
Monks of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes
I would like on this island to be reminded of my religion.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08Do you think you were always destined to be a poet, or did you have some choice in the matter?
No, it wasn't till [reading] poetry at school. I was really very, very lucky in my education when poetry hit me and I became hooked on it.
Presenter asks
2:43Is one of the reasons you spend your days in a cafe that it saves on heating and lighting bills, or that you need the company and surroundings?
Sometimes in the winter it is to get into a cheap, warm place. I like the feel of hubbub of life in that people are not going to interfere if they don't want. And then at other times I love talking to people.
Presenter asks
5:42Your poems are very revealing of you — does that worry you? Do you mind?
The mental illness poems have brought me I have sometimes felt like suppressing that book they brought me so much trouble. And the odd thing is that I don't feel those poems are [confessional]... confessional poetry to me is really a contradiction in terms.
The keepsakes
The book
The New Oxford Book of American Verse
Richard Ellmann
I want to know more. I'd like to know more about American poetry, especially today.
The luxury
a large pad, felt pens and brushes
I would like, please, a large pad and felt pens and barrows [brushes], because I hope I might write some poems, but also I could make a flag.
Presenter asks
7:46Do you write then to heal yourself or to throw a light on the human experience?
No... It's not conscious like that. It's the sum of the healing. It's the writing itself.
Presenter asks
13:26You said the years between fifteen and eighteen were the worst of your life. What went wrong?
It was adolescence. It's extraordinary to think of it now... it was a very, very dark period.
Presenter asks
25:52Do you find it difficult to enjoy accolades from notable admirers like C. Day-Lewis or Peter Levi?
I find them hard to believe. Two or three good ones don't make up for one bad [review]... I do read reviews. I think that you've got to, really.
“No, a world without it would be inconceivable. I hate pop. I've been waiting for twenty-five years for it to go.”
“I did once hear Yehudi Menuhin at the Albert Hall... so I would love to hear him play what I believe he played as a boy — Elgar's violin concerto.”
“He is always right. However you prevaricate or question his motives, whatever you say to excuse yourself, he is always right. He always has an answer. It may be a question that hurts to hear. It may be a sentence that makes you flinch.”
“I had come home at last, I had come home. I think that being at the heart of Catholicism... I suppose I rarely found happiness in it for the first time.”
“The strange thing is that [the breakdown] was a liberation and I started writing ... dozens and dozens of poems.”