0:00:10 > 0:00:14Not all of my poems are written from personal experience
0:00:14 > 0:00:18but this one absolutely is.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22This is the old harmonium.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25So what you do is, you pump that.
0:00:25 > 0:00:28HARMONIUM PLAYS
0:00:28 > 0:00:34It just makes a really lovely sort of churchy noise.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Even though this poem is called Harmonium,
0:00:39 > 0:00:44and on the surface it appears to be about a harmonium, this harmonium,
0:00:44 > 0:00:49the actual musical instrument becomes an extended metaphor.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52It's a poem about memories
0:00:52 > 0:00:56and remembering my time in the church choir
0:00:56 > 0:00:59and the fact that my dad is in the church choir as well.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05Its relevance is to do with my relationship with my dad.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15Harmonium.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18The Farrand Chapelette was gathering dust
0:01:18 > 0:01:22in the shadowy porch of Marsden Church.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25And was due to be bundled off to the skip.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28Or was mine, for a song, if I wanted it.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32Sunlight, through stained glass,
0:01:32 > 0:01:38which day to day could beatify saints and raise the dead,
0:01:38 > 0:01:40had aged the harmonium's softwood case
0:01:40 > 0:01:44and yellowed the fingernails of its keys.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48And one of its notes had lost its tongue,
0:01:48 > 0:01:53and holes were worn in both the treadles where the organist's feet,
0:01:53 > 0:01:57in grey, woollen socks and leather-soled shoes,
0:01:57 > 0:01:59had pedalled and pedalled.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04But its hummed harmonics still struck a chord.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08For a hundred years that organ had stood by the choristers' stalls,
0:02:08 > 0:02:14where father and son, each in their time, had opened their throats
0:02:14 > 0:02:19and gilded finches, like high notes, had streamed out.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27Through his own blue cloud of tobacco smog, with smoker's fingers
0:02:27 > 0:02:32and dottled thumbs, he comes to help me cart it away.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34And we carry it flat,
0:02:34 > 0:02:36laid on its back.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42And he, being him, can't help but say
0:02:42 > 0:02:46that the next box I'll shoulder through this nave
0:02:46 > 0:02:50will bear the freight of his own dead weight.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54And I, being me, then mouth in reply
0:02:54 > 0:02:58some shallow or sorry phrase or word
0:02:58 > 0:03:01too starved of breath to make itself heard.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09One technique that's at work in the poem
0:03:09 > 0:03:16is that I draw on lots of images of beauty, I suppose.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18The gilded finches, these golden birds.
0:03:18 > 0:03:22I invoke the saints,
0:03:22 > 0:03:24the stained-glass window,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26the sun coming through.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31Also there's something quite comical as well about moments in the poem
0:03:31 > 0:03:33about the organist pedalling away.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36Me and my dad must look like two furniture removers
0:03:36 > 0:03:37going down in the nave.
0:03:37 > 0:03:43And I think what I'm doing in the poem is setting up this quite morbid
0:03:43 > 0:03:46and dark remark that my dad's going to make towards the end of the poem.
0:03:46 > 0:03:51I'm just doing all that to highlight the contrast.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56He, being him, can't help but say
0:03:56 > 0:04:00that the next box I'll shoulder through this nave
0:04:00 > 0:04:04will bear the freight of his own dead weight.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09And I, being me, then mouth in reply,
0:04:09 > 0:04:14some shallow or sorry phrase or word
0:04:14 > 0:04:18too starved of breath to make itself heard.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21CHURCH BELL TOLLS
0:04:21 > 0:04:24It's got an elegiac commemorative feel to it,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27which I suppose is odd in some ways
0:04:27 > 0:04:29because my dad is very much alive and kicking.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31He's a larger-than-life character, my dad.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38I think, in some ways, my dad in the poem is quite heroic
0:04:38 > 0:04:40for being able to say what's on his mind.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42But he says that as a sort of challenge to me as well,
0:04:42 > 0:04:44and I can't respond.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48I'm very sort of weedy and breathless.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50I think I used the word shallow.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54So, in the end, I think it's about me
0:04:54 > 0:04:57and my inability to say the necessary thing.
0:04:57 > 0:04:59In fact, my response is the poem.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14When you say war poetry these days, people tend to presume
0:05:14 > 0:05:19you're talking about the poets of the First World War.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23They are the last generation of trained writers
0:05:23 > 0:05:26and trained soldiers.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28I've never been involved in a war, never been a soldier.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30I'm probably a bit of a coward
0:05:30 > 0:05:36so my route then into writing about conflict was to talk
0:05:36 > 0:05:39to other people about their experiences
0:05:39 > 0:05:41and to listen to their testimonies.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52The Manhunt.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54After the first phase,
0:05:54 > 0:05:58after passionate nights and intimate days,
0:05:58 > 0:06:00only then would he let me trace
0:06:00 > 0:06:02the frozen river which ran through his face.
0:06:04 > 0:06:09Only then would he let me explore the blown hinge of his lower jaw.
0:06:10 > 0:06:15And handle and hold the damaged, porcelain collar-bone.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22And mind and attend the fractured rudder of shoulder-blade,
0:06:22 > 0:06:27and finger and thumb the parachute silk of his punctured lung.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32Only then could I bind the struts
0:06:32 > 0:06:36and climb the rungs of his broken ribs,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39and feel the hurt of his grazed heart.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44Skirting along, only then could I picture the scan,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47the foetus of metal beneath his chest
0:06:47 > 0:06:50where the bullet had finally come to rest.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Then I widened the search
0:06:56 > 0:07:00traced the scarring back to its source
0:07:00 > 0:07:05to a sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind,
0:07:07 > 0:07:12around which every nerve in his body had tightened and closed.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Then, and only then,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19did I come close.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27This poem is written through the experiences of
0:07:27 > 0:07:29a soldier called Eddie.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33A bullet had entered the side of his face.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38The bullet had ricocheted around inside his body.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40He wanted to talk about these injuries
0:07:40 > 0:07:44and the way that they damaged his body and damaged his mind.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49But the poem was actually written from the point of view
0:07:49 > 0:07:51of Eddie's wife Laura,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55and she's trying to find the real nature of him
0:07:55 > 0:07:58and she's exploring that
0:07:58 > 0:08:02by following the course that this bullet has taken through his body.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05Only then would he let me trace
0:08:05 > 0:08:09the frozen river which ran through his face,
0:08:09 > 0:08:14only then would he let me explore the blown hinge of his lower jaw,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18and handle and hold the damaged, porcelain collar-bone.
0:08:19 > 0:08:20A lot of the imagery in the poem
0:08:20 > 0:08:26and the language in the poem is borrowed from military vocabulary.
0:08:26 > 0:08:32A lot of military ideas and words become metaphors for things
0:08:32 > 0:08:35going on in the body and also things going on in the mind.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Only then could I bind the struts
0:08:40 > 0:08:42and climb the rungs of his broken ribs,
0:08:42 > 0:08:47and feel the hurt of his grazed heart.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Skirting along, only then could I picture the scan,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54the foetus of metal beneath his chest
0:08:54 > 0:08:57where the bullet had finally come to rest.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01I use the word foetus which I think is quite a surprising word
0:09:01 > 0:09:03when you come across it.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06I was trying to almost get that moment of shock
0:09:06 > 0:09:09when the bullet is actually located there.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17Then I widened the search, traced the scarring back to its source
0:09:17 > 0:09:23to a sweating, unexploded mine buried deep in his mind.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26A lot of people who have come back from war have real issues
0:09:26 > 0:09:27with their temper.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Their nerves are shredded. She talks about unexploded mines.
0:09:31 > 0:09:36I think you could almost say that she's trying to defuse him.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48One thing I'm very conscious of with this kind of poem is
0:09:48 > 0:09:51a responsibility to people's lives.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55These are real people who have been involved in real conflicts
0:09:55 > 0:10:01where people have been injured and died and have killed people as well.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06There's a sense that you're writing memorials to people.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12Then and only then did I come close.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26When I was a kid,
0:10:26 > 0:10:29I was in Huddersfield town centre with my mum.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31We went into the town hall.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36On display was an architect's model of what
0:10:36 > 0:10:41they were going to do to the town in the forthcoming years.
0:10:41 > 0:10:47I remember the model being incredibly neat and precise.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50I probably thought it looked like a game, you know,
0:10:50 > 0:10:52like a train set or a board game.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56Where you could drive your little toy cars or move the people around
0:10:56 > 0:10:59with a throw of the dice.
0:11:02 > 0:11:03A vision.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07The future was a beautiful place once.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11Remember the full-blown balsawood town on public display
0:11:11 > 0:11:13in the Civic Hall?
0:11:13 > 0:11:18The ringbound sketches, artists' impressions,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21blueprints of smoked glass and tubular steel?
0:11:21 > 0:11:25Board game suburbs, modes of transportation,
0:11:25 > 0:11:30like fairground rides or executive toys.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36Cities like dreams, cantilevered by light.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41It was the late '60s and the early '70s.
0:11:41 > 0:11:48There was this very idealistic sense of being able to design the future.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52'One of the greatest dreams of the 20th century,
0:11:52 > 0:11:54'that dream of an entirely new kind of city.'
0:11:54 > 0:11:58This was a future made by architects and like most poets,
0:11:58 > 0:12:04I try and get the form of a poem to somehow represent
0:12:04 > 0:12:09or resemble its subject matter so in this poem, it's very architectural.
0:12:09 > 0:12:14Each verse is a quatrain, a fairly controlled syllable count going on.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18It looks orderly and it looks structured.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24And people like us at the bottle bank next to the cycle path,
0:12:24 > 0:12:31or dog walking over tended strips of fuzzy felt grass,
0:12:31 > 0:12:35or model drivers motoring home in electric cars,
0:12:35 > 0:12:40Or after the late show, strolling the boulevard.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43They were the plans,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47all underwritten in the neat left hand of architects,
0:12:47 > 0:12:49a true, legible script.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54There's a childlike perspective running through the early parts
0:12:54 > 0:12:58of the poem and I think this is reinforced by words
0:12:58 > 0:13:01like "fairground ride" and "toys"
0:13:01 > 0:13:05but it's also a poem about growing up.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08There's a line about halfway through,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12"Cities like dreams, cantilevered by light."
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Cantilevered by light - it sounds beautiful.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18It sounds wonderful as if this is an architecture
0:13:18 > 0:13:20made up entirely of light.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24Well, of course, you look a little bit further into that idea
0:13:24 > 0:13:28and light cannot support anything on its own.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31This is a dream that isn't going to come true.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40I think the end of the poem, I'm afraid to say, is rather downbeat.
0:13:42 > 0:13:48This is a landfill site, very smelly and upsetting it is, too.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54All the rubbish that we chuck away ends up here
0:13:54 > 0:13:56and it's left here to rot.
0:13:56 > 0:14:01At the end of the poem, the speaker in the poem discovers
0:14:01 > 0:14:04a blueprint or a plan for the future blowing in the rubbish.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10I pulled that future out of the north wind at the landfill site,
0:14:10 > 0:14:16stamped with today's date, riding the air with other such futures,
0:14:16 > 0:14:20all unlived in and now fully extinct.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29I'm just trying to make the case that you can draw all the diagrams
0:14:29 > 0:14:33you want and make all the plans and maps but people are complicated
0:14:33 > 0:14:38and messy and I suppose as you get older, what you realise is
0:14:38 > 0:14:44that you're actually living in that future now, it's here, it's arrived.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48And you look around you and quite a lot of it is junk.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54It's something of a dispiriting poem in that respect
0:14:54 > 0:14:57that poems can be gloomy sometimes and so can I.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07I just caught the tail end of punk rock
0:15:07 > 0:15:11when it all kicked off in 1977 and you know, when you're that age,
0:15:11 > 0:15:15things that are offensive and anarchic are very exciting.
0:15:15 > 0:15:21The poem the Clown Punk is set 25 years later.
0:15:21 > 0:15:27The speaker in the poem bumps into a punk from that era who's still
0:15:27 > 0:15:33wearing all the trappings of punk rock, including lots of tattoos.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37The Clown Punk.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42Driving home through the shonky side of town,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46three times out of 10 you'll see the town clown.
0:15:46 > 0:15:51Like a basket of washing that got up and walked, towing a dog on a rope.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55But don't laugh,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00every pixel of that man's skin is shot through with indelible ink.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07As he steps out at the traffic lights,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09think what he'll look like in 30 years' time.
0:16:11 > 0:16:14The deflated face and shrunken scalp
0:16:14 > 0:16:17still daubed with the sad tattoos of high punk.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26You kids in the back seat wince and scream
0:16:26 > 0:16:30when he slavers his daft mush on the windscreen.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Remember the clown punk with his dyed brain.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38Then picture windscreen wipers and let it rain.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47I think the poem is a very visual poem,
0:16:47 > 0:16:49especially when it's describing punk.
0:16:49 > 0:16:55- I've got to ask, does that hurt? - Yeah, I can't tell lies.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58It's the language of ink and dyes.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01The word "pixel" is also used
0:17:01 > 0:17:04and I think that modernises the speaker.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07He's entered the digital age,
0:17:07 > 0:17:12whereas the punk is still trapped in the age of pen and ink.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15You guys are too young to remember.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17I grew up in the punk age and that was the thing then,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20if you were a punk, you had a tattoo.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23Would you have a face tattoo?
0:17:23 > 0:17:26No, I don't think so. I wouldn't be that daft.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35There's a tradition of this kind of poem in English literature
0:17:35 > 0:17:40where two apparently very different people encounter each other.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45I might have been thinking a little bit about Shelley's poem,
0:17:45 > 0:17:50Ozymandias, where a carved head is found in a desert,
0:17:50 > 0:17:55some old ruler of an ancient land and the person in the poem is
0:17:55 > 0:17:59explaining how time has passed and left him marooned,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02an object of a bygone era.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06I suppose the punk in the poem is a little bit like that.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12Remember the clown punk with his dyed brain,
0:18:12 > 0:18:16then picture windscreen wipers and let it rain.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23On first reading, you might feel that the clown punk is very much
0:18:23 > 0:18:27the one with the tattoos and earrings, who's out on the street.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29I think I'm inviting you to wonder
0:18:29 > 0:18:33whether or not the man in the car might also be a clown punk
0:18:33 > 0:18:38of some kind because he's the one who has betrayed his ideals.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40He's the person who has become separated
0:18:40 > 0:18:44from the thing that he really believed in.
0:18:54 > 0:18:57It's interesting to write about homelessness
0:18:57 > 0:19:01because it's a real, visible manifestation of something
0:19:01 > 0:19:05that's not working properly in society.
0:19:05 > 0:19:11These are people who have been left behind or people who don't fit in.
0:19:11 > 0:19:12Give.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24Of all the public places, dear, to make a scene, I've chosen here.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28Of all the doorways in the world to choose to sleep,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31I have chosen yours.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35I'm on the street, under the stars.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41For coppers, I can dance or sing.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45For silver, swallow swords, eat fire.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48For gold, escape from locks and chains.
0:19:49 > 0:19:55It's not as if I'm holding out for frankincense or myrrh, just change.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00You give me tea, that's big of you.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05I'm on my knees, I beg of you.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14A poem written in the voice of somebody living on the street
0:20:14 > 0:20:18requires I think a certain amount of empathy.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22You have to put yourself in that person's position.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Graham, do you want to tell me a bit about what goes on here?
0:20:31 > 0:20:34It supports a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds,
0:20:34 > 0:20:36predominantly homeless.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38We run two soup runs a week.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41We treat up to 70 people a night.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45I myself was living on the streets for a while.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48It's terrible because it's soul-destroying.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52People just walk past you and don't even look at you.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54Sometimes, it's not even about the money.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Sometimes it's about someone to say hello to you.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01- That can make you feel human again. - A bit of human contact is worth a lot.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Yeah, worth more than money.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09Of all the public places, dear, to make a scene, I've chosen here.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16Of all the doorways in the world to chose to sleep, I've chosen yours.
0:21:20 > 0:21:25I'm a big admirer of that kind of poem which has a surface meaning
0:21:25 > 0:21:29and then another meaning and in the case of this poem, it's love.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32Um, it's a love poem.
0:21:32 > 0:21:37I think that's hinted at in the use of that word, dear.
0:21:37 > 0:21:40It perhaps suggests a more personal relationship.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44And I think as the poem goes on, you get further signals and hints and clues.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49For coppers, I can dance or sing.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54For silver, swallow swords, eat fire.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59For gold, escape from locks and chains.
0:21:59 > 0:22:04It's not as if I'm holding out for frankincense or myrrh.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07Just change.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09There's usually one line in every poem
0:22:09 > 0:22:11which seems to be flashing on and off,
0:22:11 > 0:22:14either because it's outrageous or it contains
0:22:14 > 0:22:16the significance of the poem.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19I refer to it as the neon line.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21In this poem, it's that line
0:22:21 > 0:22:24about holding out for frankincense and myrrh.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28The speaker in the poem is saying "It's not like I'm trying to be
0:22:28 > 0:22:30"the infant Christ here.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33"You know, all I want is something
0:22:33 > 0:22:36"that you can give me.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39"It's not a miracle that I'm asking for."
0:22:43 > 0:22:44You give me tea.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47That's big of you.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50I'm on my knees, I beg of you.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55This poem doesn't have a rhyme scheme as such,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58but there are little rhymes holding it together.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00Some of them are internal, they don't always
0:23:00 > 0:23:04happen at the end of the line, and some of them are half-rhymes.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08Words like chains and change.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11It suggests unrequited love
0:23:11 > 0:23:14and it reduces the person in the poem to begging.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18They are begging for love, which is an extraordinarily
0:23:18 > 0:23:22uncomfortable and insecure place to be.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25That's the place that the poem's speaking from.
0:23:29 > 0:23:31Oh, no!
0:23:31 > 0:23:33Oh, no!
0:23:38 > 0:23:429/11, the 11th of September 2001,
0:23:42 > 0:23:47became one of those dates of collective consciousness.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51Everybody who witnessed the attacks
0:23:51 > 0:23:53on the World Trade Centre
0:23:53 > 0:23:55remembers where they were at that time.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07The whole of Out Of The Blue is written from the point of view of
0:24:07 > 0:24:12an English trader in the North Tower on the day that the planes strike.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16He's narrating and commentating on the events of the day,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19but from afterwards.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21It's a voice from beyond the grave.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33You have picked me out.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37Through a distant shot of a building burning.
0:24:37 > 0:24:39You have noticed now
0:24:39 > 0:24:42That a white cotton shirt is twirling, turning.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49In fact I am waving, waving.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54Small in the clouds, but waving, waving.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57Does anyone see a soul worth saving?
0:25:00 > 0:25:03So when will you come?
0:25:03 > 0:25:06Do you think you are watching, watching
0:25:06 > 0:25:10A man shaking crumbs or pegging out washing?
0:25:13 > 0:25:16I am trying and trying.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19The heat behind me is bullying, driving,
0:25:19 > 0:25:23But the white of surrender is not yet flying.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28I am not at the point of leaving, diving.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35A bird goes by.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39The depth is appalling.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41Appalling that others like me
0:25:41 > 0:25:44Should be wind-milling, wheeling
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Spiralling, falling.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54Are your eyes believing?
0:25:54 > 0:25:59Believing that here in the gills I am still breathing?
0:26:00 > 0:26:02But tiring, tiring.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Sirens below are wailing, firing.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12My arm is numb and my nerves are sagging.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17Do you see me, my love?
0:26:17 > 0:26:21I am failing, flagging.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50This is girder sections from the North Tower.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53This would've come tumbling down
0:26:53 > 0:26:56under all that weight of the building
0:26:56 > 0:26:59and has arrived here, in the Imperial War Museum North.
0:26:59 > 0:27:01It's very moving
0:27:01 > 0:27:04to be standing here in front of it.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08In the poem, I talk about the "gills" of the building,
0:27:08 > 0:27:13these struts down the building, and that was what I was referring to.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16These might well be those sections.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20There's also the idea there of gills, you know,
0:27:20 > 0:27:23a place where you're trying to breathe from.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27The extract from the poem was written to fit
0:27:27 > 0:27:30a piece of footage which was taken at the time.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33The frame of the picture wobbles around
0:27:33 > 0:27:37and can't always keep the person in the tower in focus.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40To try and replicate that a little bit,
0:27:40 > 0:27:43I use repetition in the poem.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47So I've tried to get the nature of the poem to resemble
0:27:47 > 0:27:51the nature of that actual piece of film.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54There's a certain amount of irony in the poem,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56because it's written in a very controlled way,
0:27:56 > 0:28:02fairly neat stanzas with the same number of lines in each one.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06I suppose what I'm trying to do there is to contain the tension,
0:28:06 > 0:28:10to build up that sense of stress and panic.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13So in the same way that the lens of the camera
0:28:13 > 0:28:15finds the man in the building,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18so the poem focuses on him
0:28:18 > 0:28:20and describes his situation,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23and he becomes a metaphor for everyone.
0:28:23 > 0:28:28Everyone's terror, everyone's fear and everyone's heartbreak.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd