Three Score And Ten

Ian McMillan begins a fifty-part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets and poetry since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946. We start with the flamboyant Dame Edith Sitwell from a programme broadcast in 1947. She reads a section from Façade, a series of poems Sitwell wrote to be recited over an instrumental accompaniment by composer William Walton. Then a complete change of tone with her poem Still Falls the Rain written in 1941.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan begins a fifty-part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets and poetry since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946. We start with the flamboyant Dame Edith Sitwell from a programme broadcast in 1947. She reads a section from Façade, a series of poems Sitwell wrote to be recited over an instrumental accompaniment by composer William Walton. Then a complete change of tone with her poem Still Falls the Rain written in 1941.

Ian McMillan continues with former Poet Laureate, Cecil Day Lewis talking about the patronage of poets and reading an extract from his poem, An Italian Visit, unpublished at the time of broadcast in 1949.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues the series with poet and Third Programme Producer, Louis MacNeice who reads two of his poems recorded in 1949, 'Snow' and 'Prayer Before Birth'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with two rare recordings by the Third Programme. T.S. Eliot reading The Journey of the Magi in 1946 and an extract from The Four Quartets.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Archive recordings: TS Eliot reads The Journey of the Magi and part of The Four Quartets.

Ian McMillan continues with the rich, dramatic voice of Dylan Thomas reading his then newly written poem 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from the Third Programme's Selected Poets, 1950.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. First World War Poet, Edmund Blunden who battled at Ypres and The Somme, reads his own poem Concert Party from a broadcast in 1957.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode and one of the leading poets of the First World War, Siegfried Sassoon, reads three of his own poems recorded by The Third Programme for a broadcast on 16th February 1955. While Cleaning my Old Six-Branched Candelabrum, My Past Has Gone to Bed and Brevities.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode and former Poet Laureate John Betjeman reads his poem Youth and Age on Beaulieu River followed by poet and critic William Empson reading his poem Missing Dates. Both from broadcasts in 1958.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues this fifty part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets and poetry since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946. First Jenny Joseph reads her poem The Lost Sea and then the Scottish poet Edwin Muir reads The Two Brothers. Both from broadcasts in the late 1950s.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Norman McBeath.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this series. From a Radio 3 broadcast on Christmas Day 1953, Walter de la Mare reads his poems England and The Little Salamander.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with the mighty Sylvia Plath reading her poem Daddy recorded shortly before her death and broadcast on Radio 3 in September 1963.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. Welsh poet and preacher R.S. Thomas reads two of his poems recorded by the Third Programme at the Edinburgh International Festival in August 1965.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with Stevie Smith as she charms an Edinburgh audience with her poems which include the well-known 'Not Waving But Drowning' recorded in the Freemasons' Hall and broadcast August 1965.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan introduces Philip Larkin who reads his poem The Whitsun Weddings recorded in the 1960s and discovered in Words and Music: 40 Years of Poetry on Radio 3, broadcast three decades ago.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan introduces one of the key poets of the 1960s, Adrian Mitchell, reading "Nostalgia now threepence off" recorded by Radio 3 in 1962.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan introduces one of the key poets of the 1960s, Adrian Mitchell, reading "Nostalgia now threepence off" recorded by Radio 3 in 1962.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Hughes reads an extract 'The Captain's Speech' from a verse drama broadcast in 1960 and from the 1970s, 'The Mackerel Song'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode as W.H. Auden reads 'Lullaby' and 'Song of the Devil' recorded at Poetry International on 21st August 1972, from Radio 3's programme Auden in London.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues the series with Dannie Abse who reads the first two parts from his nine part poem 'Funland' broadcast in a programme called Poetry Bang, May 1971.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. Seamus Heaney talks about and reads 'Digging' from 1968 and 'The Ministry of Fear' from Radio 3's Poetry Cambridge programme, June 1978.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with Scottish poets George Mackay Brown and W.S. Graham reading their poems about loss and memory.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets and poetry since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946. From The Living Poet, August 1979, Geoffrey Hill reads a selection of his poems starting with 'History as Poetry'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: University of Leeds.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this series. From the 1970s and brand new or unpublished poetry series Poetry Now, Douglas Dunn reads his 'Ballad of the Two Left Hands' and Michael Longley reads 'Ash Keys' and 'Frozen Rain'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with Iain Crichton Smith reading three of his poems from Poetry Now, October 1976 and September 1981.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode and Cornish poet Charles Causley reading 'On Launceston Castle' dedicated to his county from The Living Poet, September 1981.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets. Christopher Reid begins with his poem 'Arcadia' from June 1985 followed by Craig Raine with his 'A Martian Sends A Postcard Home' from a 1981 programme called Caxtons are Mechanical Birds.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with a recording from The Living Poet, May 1983, as Elizabeth Jennings reads 'Thunder and a Boy' and 'In a Garden'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in the series. From Radio 3's 1983 broadcast A Staffordshire Murder and Other Poems, James Fenton reads 'Prison Island'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with poets of the personal and political. Sean O'Brien and Mick Imlah read their poems from broadcasts in the 1980s.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with one of the leading figures in the creation of a Caribbean literature, Kamau Brathwaite. From The Living Poet, April 1982, Brathwaite reads his poems 'Calypso' and 'The Emigrants'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with Wendy Cope who reads three of her poems from programmes The Living Poet and Poetry Now, both broadcast in 1988.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan introduces Fleur Adcock who reads two of her poems subtly exploring stereotyping and sexual politics from The Living Poet 1985.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Jemimah Kuhfeld.

Ian McMillan with a recording from 1983. Leeds born Tony Harrison reads 'Them and Us' and 'On Not Being Milton'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with three poets originally from the Caribbean. Reading their new poems from Poetry Now 1982 Grace Nichols reads 'Night is Her Robe', John Agard 'Pan Recipe' and Fred D'Aguiar extracts from his 'Mama Dot' sequence.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Grace Nichols Photograph: Mike Park.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series and from the Radio 3 poetry programme New Voices, award-winning poet Jo Shapcott reads from her very first poetry collection Electroplating the Baby in 1989.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. James Berry reflects on his life as he reads a selection of his poetry from 'Reflections of a UK Caribbean' broadcast February 1982.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Sal Idriss.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy reads two of her poems, from two decades, 1988 and 1991.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Jemimah Kuhfeld.

Ian McMillan introduces Thom Gunn who reads from his anthology The Man with Night Sweats on the untimely death of friends from the horror of Aids. Broadcast in February 1993.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets. Lavinia Greenlaw reads her then unpublished poem 'Akhmatova in Lambertville' from a Young Poet's programme in 1996. A title which changed before publishing to 'Reading Akhmatova in Midwinter'. Then Kathleen Jamie reading 'Ultrasound' a poem commissioned for Radio 3's earlier celebration "Five Poems for Fifty Years".

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Kathleen Jamie Photograph: Eamonn McCabe.

Ian McMillan continues with a special commission written to mark Five Poems for Fifty Years broadcast in October 1996. Peter Reading reads an extract from his poem Three, in part, an elegy for those who had died since the launch of the Third Programme and his own birth.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with two Scottish poets in this episode. Norman MacCaig reads his poem 'A Birthday Card' and Sorley MacLean reads his 'The Cry of Europe'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues this fifty part series with a search for silence as Simon Armitage reads a specially commissioned poem recorded in Iceland in 1995 plus an extract from 'Goalkeeper with a Cigarette'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with a recording from a Proms Interval programme broadcast in 2000, U.A. Fanthorpe reads two of her poems on the subject of Youth and Age.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: R.V. Bailey.

Ian McMillan with another episode in the series introducing former National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke reading her poems 'The Beginning' and 'Flood' from a Twenty Minutes Poetry Prom broadcast in 2002.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Adrian Pope.

Ian McMillan continues with Paul Durcan reading two of his poems 'Diarrhoea Attack' and 'Sign of Peace' from an appearance on The Verb in 2009.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan with a poem specially commissioned for an interval programme from Liz Lochhead, former Makar - the Scottish National Poet. Recorded on location in Glasgow in 2006.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Alastair Cook.

Ian McMillan with another episode in this fifty part series. From a Night Waves episode in 20003, Scottish poet Robert Crawford reads two of his poems 'The Tip of My Tongue' and 'Credo'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Ian McMillan continues with Jean Binta Breeze who reads two poems recorded by the Verb in 2004, 'The Month of March' and 'The Fifth Figure'.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Tehron Royes.

Ian McMillan with Former National Poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis, who reads two of her poems recorded at the Hay Festival in 2004 by Radio 3's The Verb.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Keith Morris.

Ian McMillan presents the final programme in this fifty part series celebrating 70 years of Radio 3's recording of poets and poetry since it was launched as the Third Programme in September 1946. Paul Muldoon reads his new poem 'The Loaf' from the series Work in Progress, 2001.

Three Score and Ten features archive recordings from the last seven decades of the Third Programme and Radio 3, with 70 remarkable poets reading their own poems. Amongst them T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Plus ten brand new poems by contemporary poets commissioned specially for the series and broadcast on The Verb.

Producer: Sharon Sephton; Research by Caitlin Crawford.

Photograph: Norman McBeath.