Episode description

Left unfinished at his death in 2011, the poet worked on his version of the Illiad for over 40 years. As a new audio book of Christopher Logue reading War Music is released, Shahidha Bari and her guests, the writers Marina Warner and Tariq Ali, and Logue's widow, the historian Rosemary Hill, examine the work. Rosemary Hill describes Logue as writing "poems to be read to jazz accompaniment, to be set to music and to be printed on posters. He wanted poetry to be part of everybody’s life." In War Music he used anachronistic imagery to link this classical war to more modern examples. In the Second World War Logue served briefly in the Black Watch, before spending sixteen months in a military prison and later becoming a member of CND.

The British Library has acquired the archive of Christopher Logue, which includes 22 boxes of private papers, along with 53 files of drafts, working materials and correspondence relating to War Music, and annotated printed books and an event in December marks this.

In the programme you will hear Christopher Logue – War Music The original recording read by the Author Recorded December 1995, Sound Development Studios, London Produced and directed by Liane Aukin Mastered by Simon Heyworth (P) & © 2021 Laurence Aston and Rosemary Hill Clips from War Music are not to be reproduced in any way without prior permission of the copyright holders.

This programme also includes a clip from a programme Christopher Logue made on 'Minor Poets' for the Third Programme in 1957, and a clip of Christopher Logue reading part of his poem Lecture on Man at the International Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965.

Producer Luke Mulhall