BBC Radio 4 Extra

Lost Voices

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: Life Stories

Poet Brian Patten explores the life and work of lesser-known or forgotten poets

Lost Voices: Series 2

Lost Voices: Series 2: Episode 3: Thomas Blackburn

Episode 3

Episode 3: Thomas Blackburn

Series 2

Thomas Blackburn

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Lost Voices, Series 2, Thomas Blackburn

Poet Thomas Blackburn wrote to exorcise his personal demons. Brian Patten tells his story.

Brian Patten examines the work of Thomas Blackburn, the 20th-century poet whose powerful work reflected his troubled life. The poems are read by Patrick Romer.

BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Lost Voices: Thomas Blackburn'. 

Novelist Julia Blackburn joins Brian Patten to talk about the life and work of her father, Thomas, whose powerful and remarkable poetry reflects the lifelong struggles he had with his demons. Thomas's father handed on to his son a hideous sense of shame which was in due course compounded by alcoholism and an addiction to prescription drugs. Yet Thomas Blackburn's rich and unflinching poetry is still well worth reading, and at the end of his life he was able to make peace with the past and die in contentment.

Poems read by Patrick Romer.
Producer: Christine Hall.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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