This interview, interspersed with readings from Michael’s extensive work, will examine the thorny relationship between poetry and politics and the artistic challenges of addressing contentious political and cultural issues.

Michael Longley has published twelve collections of poetry. His most recent collection, The Candlelight Master, came out in 2020. In 2001 he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, and he has won the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, the Hawthornden Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the PEN Pinter prize. The Stairwell (2014) won the Griffin International Prize.

Michael Longley was appointed a CBE in 2010, and he is a Freeman of the City of Belfast. From 2007 to 2010 he was Ireland Professor of Poetry. Sidelines: Selected Prose 1962-2015 appeared in 2017. A new collection of poems, The Slain Birds, will be published in September this year.

William Crawley is a BBC presenter and journalist. He hosts Talkback weekdays on BBC Radio Ulster and Sunday on BBC Radio 4. He has written and presented radio and television programmes on many subjects, from history and science to religion and literature.