Poetry Extra: Lost Voices

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Poetry Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly opportunity for listeners to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

A brand new poetry slot on Radio 4 Extra gives listeners a weekly opportunity to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

Poetry Extra: Lost Voices - Harry Fainlight

Lost Voices - Harry Fainlight

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Lost Voices - Harry Fainlight

Daljit Nagra selects the best programmes from the BBC's poetry archive.

Daljit Nagra selects Lost Voices: Harry Fainlight who wrote sublimely lyrical poetry. Presented by Brian Patten. From 2009.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and chooses Lost Voices: Harry Fainlight who was a young man of rare promise when a trip to America to meet the Beat poets in the early 1960s changed his life forever. He lived a ramshackle, bizarre life but produced sublimely lyrical poetry. 

Brian Patten, whose poetry was a celebrated part of the 1960s cultural scene, remembers a contemporary who did not survive the 20th century. Harry Fainlight was a deeply troubled magus and accomplished lyrical poet but he really was his own worst enemy. He upset people, he was upset by imagined slights, he could not bear the thought of publishers selling his work. Brian meets several of Harry's friends and talks to his sister, the successful poet Ruth Fainlight, to get an idea of who Harry really was. He also shares many of Harry's finest poems, all of which are now out of print.

Lost Voices is a series in which poet Brian Patten explores the life and work of lesser-known or forgotten poets.

Reader – Carl Prekopp
Producer – Christine Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

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