Sam Lee

The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed

If the poets of the past sat in their garrets dipping their quills in ink and waiting for inspiration to strike, our current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has a more mundane and domestic arrangement. From his wooden shed in the garden, surrounded on all sides by the Pennine Hills and the Pennine weather, he scratches away at his reworking of the comic medieval poem The Owl and the Nightingale. Any distraction is welcome, even encouraged, to throw light on some of the poem's internal themes .

Sam Lee - folk song collector, environmentalist and singer - has a special relationship with the outside world and the nightingale, so his appearance in the shed is most welcome. Simon has never seen a nightingale, living in an area which has none. So he's curious to hear about Sam's night-time walks into the Sussex countryside to hear them. It's a profound sensory experience at night. The call is loud and ears throb. Sam describes calling them out of the trees, singing with them and taking groups of people into the woods who are often overwhelmed by the sound of this musical bird.

Sam talks about collecting folk song around the country and both finish by singing Pratty Flowers, the anthem of Homfirth, a village near to Simon's shed.