Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Tonight I'm talking to the former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion and the poet Paul Farley about Louis MacNeice.

He was part of the celebrated 1930s generation that included Orden, Dale Lewis and Spender,

and he'd have liked these prompts plus events because he was both a radio playwright and a radio producer.

The Irish writer Glenn Patterson said of him that reading McNeese was like a light coming on.

And the poet Nick Laird said of McNeice that Louis McNeice's influences everywhere in contemporary poetry,

in its forms and in its forms of engagement.

But as we approach the 50th anniversary of his death, tomorrow in fact,

it seems to me that he's in danger of being forgotten.

So, Andrew, let's start with you.

When did you first come across Louis MacNeice as a writer?

I think I probably read one or two poems by him as a schoolboy.

So that would have been in the 1960s, but really only one or two.

And he was very, very much in Audent's shadow and introduced to me as somebody who lived in Ordn's shadow,

had written in Auden Shadow and had remained in it in some way.

Then when I arrived at university,

I fell in love with somebody who I later married,

who was very keen on McNeese.

So guess what?

I got very keen on McNeese.

It seemed absolutely the thing that I had to do.

And I very quickly, of course,

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