The Names of the Bridges
Poets Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley interrogate the myth of the doomed poet. Today they explore the lives - and suicides - of John Berryman and Sylvia Plath.
What is the cost of poetry? Must poets be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive? Or is this just a myth? In our new Book of the Week, Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley - both award winning poets themselves - explore that very question through a series of journeys across Britain, America and Europe.
From Thomas Chatterton's Pre-Raphaelite demise to Dylan Thomas's eighteen straight whiskies, the deaths of poets have often cast a backward shadow on their work.
The post-Romantic myth of the dissolute drunken poet - exemplified by Thomas and made iconic by his death in New York - has fatally skewed the image of poets in our culture. Novelists can be stable, savvy, politically adept and in control, but poets should be melancholic, doomed and self-destructive. Is this just a myth, or is there some essential truth behind it: that great poems only come when a poet's life is pushed right to an emotional knife-edge of acceptability, safety, security?
Today the poets explore the lives - and suicides - of John Berryman and Sylvia Plath.
Written and read by the authors
Abridged for radio by Lauris Morgan Griffiths
Produced by Simon Richardson.
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Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Reader | Michael Symmons Roberts |
| Reader | Paul Farley |
| Author | Michael Symmons Roberts |
| Author | Paul Farley |
| Abridger | Lauris Morgan Griffiths |
| Producer | Simon Richardson |
Broadcasts
- Tue 21 Feb 2017 09:45Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 FM
- Wed 22 Feb 2017 00:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
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