"Poetry and the Microphone" is an essay by English writer

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

.Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.)''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 2: My Country Right or Left'', 16 (London, Penguin) It refers to his work at the BBC’s Eastern Service broadcasting half-hour-long literary programmes to India in the format of an imaginary monthly literary magazine. Written in 1943, it was not published until 1945, in ''New Saxon Pamphlet''. Orwell had by then left the BBC. Notable for including Orwell’s sentence: "Poetry on the air sounds like the Muses in striped trousers", the article mentions some of the material used in the broadcasts, mainly by contemporary or near-contemporary English writers such as

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the ...

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

Henry Treece Henry Treece (22 December 1911 – 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels. Life and work Treece wa ...

Alex Comfort Alexander Comfort (10 February 1920 – 26 March 2000) was a British scientist and physician known best for his nonfiction sex manual, ''The Joy of Sex'' (1972). He was an author of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a gerontologist, ...

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...

, and

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

. Whenever possible, the authors themselves were invited to read their poems on the air. Orwell refers to the fact that placing the poet in front of a microphone and having to read his poem out loud has an effect not only on the audience but also on the poet. He states that over the past two hundred years poetry has come to have less connection with music and the spoken word, with lyrical and rhetorical poetry having almost ceased to exist. The key to broadcasting poetry was to engage the audience – of one – in order to avoid the "atmosphere of frigid embarrassment" of the "grisly"

poetry readings A poetry reading is a public oral recitation or performance of poetry. Reading poetry aloud allows the reader to express their own experience through poetry, changing the poem according to their sensibilities. The reader uses pitch and stress, and ...

which always contained some people who were bored or "all but frankly hostile and who couldn't remove themselves by the simple act of turning a knob". He points out that the unpopularity of poetry contrasts with the "good-bad" poetry, "generally of a patriotic or sentimental kind" and with "folk poetry", as in nursery rhymes, etc. One number of the programme was on the subject of war and included two poems by Edmund Blunden, Auden’s "September 1941",Orwell gives the title as "September 1941"; however there is no poem by Auden of that title. Almost certainly the reference is to Auden's poem "September 1, 1939". An anthology ''Poetry in Wartime'' edited by M. J. Tambimuttu, published in 1942 included the poem "September 1, 1939" but misprinted the title as "September 1, 1941"; this may have been the source of Orwell's error. extracts from "A Letter from Anne Ridler" by

G. S. Fraser George Sutherland Fraser (8 November 1915 – 3 January 1980) was a Scotland, Scottish poet, literary critic and academic. Biography Fraser was born in Glasgow, Scotland, later moving with his family to Aberdeen. He attended the University of ...

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

's "Isles of Greece", and an extract from

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

's ''

Revolt in the Desert ''Seven Pillars of Wisdom'' is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), of serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire o ...

''. The essay goes on to refer to the fact that broadcasting is "under the control of governments or great monopoly companies which are actively interested in maintaining the status quo and therefore preventing the common man from becoming too intelligent." He gives the example of the British Government which, at the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had declared its "intention of keeping the literary intelligentsia "out of it; yet after three years of war almost every writer, however undesirable his political history or opinions, has been sucked into the various Ministries or the BBC" or, if already in the armed forces, into public relations "or some other essentially literary job". He points out a small consolation in that "the bigger the machine of government becomes, the more loose ends and forgotten corners there are in it" and that as long as they are "forced to maintain an intelligentsia", there will also be a minimum of freedom. Finally, he urges those "who care for literature to turn their minds to this much-despised medium" which has "powers for good". The Indian Section of the BBC published a collection of the broadcasts, ''

Talking to India ''Talking to India'' is a book authored by E. M. Forster, Ritchie Calder, Cedric Dover, Hsiao Ch'ien and others, and published by Allen and Unwin in 1943. It was edited by George Orwell following his time at the BBC Radio Eastern Service. It incl ...

'' (1943), which was edited by Orwell.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Poetry and the Microphone 1943 essays Essays by George Orwell British Empire in World War II

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