麻豆约拍

Our Poetry Detective Vanessa Kisuule investigates two headstones with mysterious epitaphs and finds out about people drawing on poetry to help them choose the words to mark their loved one's final resting place.

Listener Michelle Thomas asks Vanessa if she can find anything out about a grave she encountered years ago, in the cemetery of St Peter's, Heysham - a small village overlooking Morecambe Bay. The epitaph on the headstone reads "Poet, Philosopher & Failure". Who is buried there, why were they deemed a 'failure', and can we find any of their poetry?

David Bingham is the author of 'The London Dead', a blog he has been adding to for more than 10 years with stories of London's cemeteries and graveyards. He tells us about a striking and unusual grave he's encountered, bearing text from three separate poems. Who wrote the poems? And why were they chosen? Vanessa investigates, with the help of the writer Damian Le Bas.

And we visit the Oxfordshire workshop of stone carver Fergus Wessel where the walls are covered in lines of poetry cut into stone. He tells us about supporting people through the process of choosing an epitaph for a headstone, and how poetry might be one source of inspiration as we search for the right words.

Produced by Mair Bosworth for 麻豆约拍 Audio