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Hello, I'm Abigail Appleton and part of my role in Radio 3 is to commission our speech programmes -Ìý from our regular blast of arts and ideas Night Waves to strange and wonderful single features in Between the Ears and special events such as the current Radio 3 Poetry Season.Ìý

Poetry is an important part of the mix throughout the year on Radio 3 but our current focus is part of a larger Ö÷²¥´óÐã Poetry Season including a host of programmes on Ö÷²¥´óÐã 2 and Ö÷²¥´óÐã 4.ÌýÌý Radio 3's contribution kicked off with reading 14 of Shakespeare's sonnetsÌý400 years to the day of their first publication.Ìý You can listen to all of these readings through the Radio 3 website until May next year and we're also putting up each of the daily 'Poems for Today' we're broadcasting in Breakfast this month, poems which have all been written or published in the last twelve months.Ìý We're hoping to improve the page layout shortly, but you can find the poems each day at the bottom of each webpage.Ìý And you can also share the audio with friends, though I've found to my cost it can be rather time-consuming deciding which poem suits which friend, an indication perhaps of how intimate poetry can be.Ìý Do take a look at personal recommendations made by some of our presenters.

I don't know which of our Poems for Today we will be celebrating in 400 years (any nominations?) but I think they're giving an exhilarating taste of the richness and diversity of poetry being written in the UK today.Ìý One that's been resonating with me this week, perhaps because I was lucky enough to spend the weekend in deep countryside, is 'Written some time between the month of May and the month of May not', with its moving evocation of the fragility of nature.Ìý

Personally I think it's terrific to see poetry given such a high profile on Ö÷²¥´óÐã television as well as radio.Ìý I hope it will encourage new audiences for poetry but perhaps it also reflects an already growing public interest in the form.Ìý Certainly there's been a lot of noise about poetry recently though not all of it welcome - let's move on fromÌýthe debacle over the Oxford Professorship.Ìý But there's aÌý buzz about the flourishing spoken word scene, there are countless writing courses and if the response of the Radio 3 Breakfast audience last Thursday to Ian McMillan's challenge to help him write a poem live on air is anything to go by the Radio 3 audience is thick with bards.Ìý Is the audience for poetry really broadening?Ìý Was there ever a golden age of widespread poetry reading?Ìý Can literary writing flourish alongside poetry in performance?ÌýÌý Is 'slim volume' publishing more significant as a matter of record than in reaching audiences these days?ÌýÌýÌý Later this yearÌý we're going to be looking at how poetry has reached its audiences in different periods from Shakespeare to the present in a Sunday Feature and would welcome your thoughts.Ìý Many thanks for reading this farÌý - I promise my next post will be closer to sonnet length than epic.

Abigail Appleton is Head of Speech Programming and Presentation for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 3.