The Poetry Room

Poetry occupies a foundational position in English literature – before prose and novels, it was the primary medium for the communication and preservation of our cultural and historical record. That is a tradition which endures in the appointment to this day of a poet laureate who composes works for national occasions.

Through the ages, it has been a fountainhead of linguistic creativity and innovation and it continues to shape the language. I marvel at the skill of the writer who is able to condense ideas so succinctly in a poem, inventively and imaginatively, with lyricism and emotional potency — something that becomes more evident when we hear it recited or read it out loud.

Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate from 2009 to 2019, said: "The poem is a form of texting … it's the original text. It's a perfecting of a feeling in language — a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. It's a kind of time capsule — it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form."