Dave Swann is a Brighton based poet and writer. His recently published book, The Privilege of Rain, is a mixture of poetry and prose that came out of his time as writer in residence at a high security prison in Nottingham.
The Privilege of Rain was recently nominated for the Poetry Society’s Ted Hughes new poetry award.
In this film Dave reads three short extracts from his book.
Poetry rarely makes it onto broadcast TV, as this recent article explores. But I think that film and video is an excellent way for people to access poetry, a starting point for those that ordinarily wouldn’t pick up or even buy a book of verse.
Poetry can be challenging to realise in film. On the one hand you try hard to evoke the meaning and feeling of the words, but it’s important not to be overly literal, to get into illustrating each and every line. Hopefully I have struck the right balance in this film.
