Ted Hughes

"Ted Hughes (1930-1998) is a brooding presence in the landscape of 20th Century poetry, not unlike the six hundred feet-high Scout Rock which overshadowed his Yorkshire childhood. Hughes' early experience of the moors and his industrially-scarred surroundings were the keynotes of his later poetic imagination: an unflinching observation of the natural world and the shaping, often damaging, presence of man."

W H Auden

"Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) is one of the most influential voices in 20th Century poetry. It is impossible to summarise his achievements, ranging as they do across some four hundred poems in a bewildering variety of styles, as well as drama, essays, libretti, travel writing and critical works. "

Roald Dahl

"Roald Dahl (1916-1990) is one of the most successful children's writers in the world: around thirty million of his books have been sold in the U.K. alone. Children love his poems and stories because he writes from their point of view - in his books adults are often the villains or are just plain stupid! "

Behold! A happy poet

Christina Patterson, The Independent, May 2008

‘Wendy Cope is the oxymoron that makes other poets jealous, happy and successful in her lifetime! It wasnt always this way, Christine Patterson hears about her trips to a psychoanalyst and being ostracised after success.’

Out of the poetic mire

Michael Horowitz, The Guardian, May 2008

‘The world of publishing and media, which should contain the guardians of our culture, is run by marketing and accountants, philistine characters who are by nature cautious and constricting..’

Wendy Cope's room

Writer's rooms, The Guardian, Feb 2009

“A leather armchair, Constable and a desk given to her by her parents -Wendy Cope is grateful for the space she has to write in and dreads moving to a smaller house..”

Andrew Motion's room

Writer's rooms, The Guardian, Oct 2007

A vertigo-inspiring glass topped desk and a tinted photograph of his mother furnish the former laureate’s room. He looks down at his legs but never out of the window!

Poetry needs us to say that it matters

Andrew Motion, The Independent, Apr 2009

A harried bureaucrat might make some perfectly ordinary observation, and a pair of piercing blue eyes would rest on theirs and a mellifluous voice would declare that it knew exactly what they meant. And they would emerge feeling better, emerge marinaded in the Andrew Motion charm.

Shakespeare's sonnets

Don Paterson, The Guardian, Oct 2010

“Everyone knows them but does anyone actually know what they mean? Are they so familiar that they’ve become commonplace? And do we think we know them but crumble under questioning? This was what Don Paterson did at a dinner party one night, he knew it meant he had to look into the sonnets for real.”

Seamus Heaney reads from 'The Human Chain'

Seamus Heaney, The Telegraph, Jan 2011

“Recorded at the Southbank Centre during the T.S. Eliot Prize ceremony; Seamus Heaney reads from his nominated collection.