More hope

I recorded ‘What Hope Saw’ in a studio this morning for, yes, the poem and Nigel Clarke’s composition are going to be issued as a CD! Watch this space. As to the reading, this was a very interesting experience for me. The way I parsed the poem to read it was very different from the way I had written it. Also, because there were several takes and the stanzas were recorded separately, I had to think carefully about intonation and about whether, for example, I wished to finish a stanza on an upbeat or a downbeat. It was one of those miniature revelations that make you realise that there is much more to it than you would realise when, for example, you listen to Poetry Please on Radio 4…