BBC poetry season

What a treat the Beeb is giving us at present. I've had my interest turned from passive into active again listening to its programmes.

The fun thing was trying to write a poem in the morning programme with Ian Macmillan and Sara Mohr-Pietsch. Though I did struggle to keep up and my efforts weren't anywhere as good as those chosen

The important thing is that I was motivated to try.

And watching the programmes on John Donne, Milton and Beowulf made me take down long unopened volumes from the shelves. Unlike a lot of people my age I didn't meet any of them at school. But I did dive into John Keats and what a perfect poet for an emotional, adolescent wordsmith in the making.

John Donne I did meet later and many years ago did a course on at Missenden Abbey with Geoffrey Smith the jazz presenter. (his Jazz Record Requests is required Saturday afteroon listening in our house)

Writing for business you sometimes lose the richness and depth of poetic language so it's been great to have my senses re-awakened. I'm looking forward to the other programmes to see what else I can learn.