Alice Oswald named BBC Radio 4 Poet-in-Residence

BBC Radio 4 has named Alice Oswald as its new Poet-in-Residence.

Oswald will replace Daljit Nagra in the role who has held the position since 2015.

As part of the job, Oswald will produce a longer work specifically for Radio 4 each year, work on poetry documentaries and read one of her poems at each equinox and solstice.

The announcement coincides with a live reading of ‘Almost as Transparent’, Oswald’s specially-commissioned poem for Radio 4, inspired by the autumn equinox.

Gwyneth Williams, controller of BBC Radio 4, said: “I am honoured to welcome one of our finest poets to BBC Radio 4 and so continue the tradition of opening our airwaves to the greatest writers and cultural figures of the age. Who can live without poetry and who better than Alice Oswald to bring poetry closer to the heart of Radio 4.”

Oswald trained as a classicist at New College, University of Oxford. Her first collection of poetry, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile (1996), received a Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. Her latest book is Falling Awake (2016) which won the 2017 Griffin Prize and the 2016 Costa Poetry Award.