The Poetry Hour

Let yourselves be transported by the readings and musings of three major poets. They may be about Budapest or the East End, film reels or music scores, philosophy or politics, reflections on love and death or the dilemmas of being Jewish.

Bernard Kops is the much-loved author of more than forty plays for stage and radio, nine novels, two autobiographies and most recently a collection of poetry, This Room in the Sunlight.

George Szirtes was born in Budapest and came to England as a refugee in 1956. Trained as an artist, he is a translator, editor and has published some dozen prize-winning books of poetry, his most recent The Burning of the Books. www.georgeszirtes.co.uk

Michelene Wandor is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and musician. She is the first woman to have had a drama on one of the National Theatre’s main stages – The Wandering Jew, in 1987. Her radio drama includes original radio plays and dramatizations, the most recent, Tulips in Winter, about the Jewish philosopher, Spinoza. Her books about contemporary theatre include Carry On, Understudies: Theatre and Sexual Politics, and Postwar British Drama: Looking Back in Gender. She has made a CD of the music of Salamone Rossi, the 17th century Italian-Jewish composer. Her poetry collection, Musica Transalpina, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for 2006. www.mwandor.co.uk.