Poets on Air Producing Poetry at the BBC, 1950–1966

Poets on Air: Producing Poetry at the BBC, 1950–1966  examines how three BBC radio producers, D.G. Bridson, Douglas Cleverdon and George MacBeth, collaborated with poets at the Third Programme (later Radio 3) to create new works which frequently pushed the limits and expectations of a more ‘traditional’ poetry reading audience. Nerys Williams argues that radio poets and their producers were attuned to radio’s potential as a disseminator of cultural commentary and narrative of potential political change to a mass audience. Williams considers how the institution sought to respond to and represent new poetic movements between 1950–1966, through the BBC’s Poetry Committee and major BBC Publications The Listener and BBC Yearbook. Using memos, scripts and sound archive material from the BBC, the book gives context to the reception of individual programmes as well as detailed correspondence, essays, lectures and notes from the producers’ archive holdings. Poets on Air reconstructs the collaborative relationship between poet and producer, offering a critical vocabulary that allows us to ‘listen in’ on the broadcast poem, or ‘sound’ work.

Featured radio poets: Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Rosemary Tonks, Basil Bunting, Dylan Thomas, Laura Riding, David Gascoyne, Bob Cobbing, and Anne Waldman.