Great Poets: In Their Own Words

The first episode explores the stylistic shifts in poetry as the 20th century dawned, when poets began to jettison tradition for modern forms of expression. They would reject the sentiment and moralising of Victorian poetry and call for a new directness and economy of language fitting for a postwar generation. Featuring the works of Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, Edith Sitwell, WH Auden, Stevie Smith, John Betjeman, RS Thomas and Dylan Thomas.

In the 1950s, English poetry becomes more democratic as poets like Philip Larkin turn away from the obscurity of modernism in favour of language and subject matter that reflect the feel of 50s Britain. American poets develop a raw confessional style, while in Britain poets reach out to new audiences - on television, in pubs, on the streets. Featuring the work of Philip Larkin, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Roger McGough, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Seamus Heaney.