Summary
DH Lawrence was, in the words of Geoff Dyer, a man with thin wrists and thick trousers. He was also the author of Women in Love, Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover. But poet and performer John Hegley has chosen him above all for the quality of his poetry, an admiration presenter Matthew Parris also shares.
Lawrence died aged just 44. An obituary at the time reckoned he was 'a rebel against all the accepted values of modern civilization'. Certainly his life - born in Eastwood, Notts, became a teacher only to run off with a German-born mother of three to embark on his 'savage pilgrimage' around the world - was unpredictable. As indeed was this programme, recorded in front of an audience at the Arnolfini in Bristol, with John Hegley using both music and verse to make his point. Geoff Dyer, the author of Out of Sheer Rage, makes the case that Lawrence's unpredictability was a sign of strength, and that his best work lies in his letters and not his books. The producer is Miles Warde.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My name is Annie Matmanis and my name is Nick Grimshaw. How long have we known each other babe? |
| 0:05.0 | Probably 20 years now and in that time we've always worked in and around music right? |
| 0:10.0 | We have. So it kind of makes sense that we do a podcast better. It sounds |
| 0:13.9 | like he's been 20 years in the making. It's not a avatar for podcasts basically, but it is good. |
| 0:18.6 | So we put the world to rights with you for downloading this great lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
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| 0:39.0 | UK slash Radio 4. |
| 0:41.0 | We regret to announce the death of Mr David Herbert Lawrence, which occurred in a sanatorium near Nice. |
| 0:48.0 | So wrote the Manchester Guardian in March 1930. |
| 0:52.0 | Mr Lawrence, it went on, was a writer who has exercised a more |
| 0:56.6 | potent influence perhaps over his generation than any of his contemporaries. |
| 1:02.1 | Hello and welcome to the Arnulfini in Bristol, |
| 1:05.0 | where D.H. Lawrence is our great life today. |
| 1:08.0 | A rebel, in that obituary's words, |
| 1:11.0 | against all the accepted values of modern Western civilization. |
| 1:15.6 | Well, maybe. |
| 1:17.0 | Lawrence died very young, just 44 years old, but in that time his output was extraordinary both in poetry and in books which famously include sons and lovers women in love and Lady Chatel is lover. |
| 1:30.0 | He's chosen here today by the poet and performer John Hegley and I believe that before you start explaining why you've nominated Lawrence John you want to read us some of his verse. |
| 1:41.0 | I wanted to read the tortoise because the tortoise is the one that I love the most. |
| 1:44.5 | And this is a bit and there's four tortoise poems. They might be hiding under rocks somewhere, some other ones. |
| 1:49.9 | So I'm going to read a bit of tortoise and I'll say my little thing. |
| 1:54.0 | So yeah, so he's addressing the tortoise. |
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