BBC Poetry Season

Just when it seemed universally accepted that there is absolutely 'nothing on telly' anymore, the BBC have gone and proved that they can still do it if they try.

The Poetry Season that is still in progress, and tonight offers a programme on Paradise Lost as an alternative to the grinding inevitability of the still ongoing football season in which the gorgeous Wayne Rooney will face up to the falling-over Barcelona in a titanic clash of unspeakable cliche, has been a treasure.

At first it did look as if they had filled a weekend on BBC4 by dusting off whatever they could find in the archives. And it was good to see much of it again, as well as Ian Hislop's history of the laureateship. The sight of Auden shuffling down the stairs to be interviewed by Parkinson was quite moving, even before one had to wonder what Seamus Heaney would make of Jonathan Ross' inane waffling if a similar show was attempted now.

But it has been much better than just that. Owen Sheers' (pictured) series on a Poet's Britain has been exemplary, putting an interesting selection of poems in geographical and biographical context in a way that is sensible, evocative and unpretentious. Sheers himself is a real find as a presenter, being so presentable and the antithesis of the scruffy weirdo that many might expect as the stereotypical poet.

His account of Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge was well-judged and delivered a great summary of what happened to Wordsworth; Sylvia Plath's Wuthering Heights showed off the genius of the poet rather than dwelling too much on the dark life; George Mackay Brown goes onto one's reading list after seeing the beautiful, remote background to his writing and Matthew Arnold is an old favourite of mine who needs looking at again. Dover Beach is a somewhat forgotten classic, lying dormant in all those anthologies but still immensely powerful.

Perhaps it is simply because I'm overly grateful for these programmes but I was almost tempted to write that Simon Schama's programme on John Donne was just about the best thing I've ever seen on television. You normally have to buy books to find out about this sort of thing. It was more or less John Carey and Simon Schama, helped out with readings by Fiona Shaw, outlining the essential bits of John Stubbs' biography of Donne but they enthused about and explained some of Donne's best poems as well, which all seemed fine to me as I had voted for him in the Nation's Favourite Poet poll only a day or two before. One thing I did find out was that I had wasted my time scrutinizing the portrait of Donne in the National Portrait Gallery for the motto 'better dead than changed' inscribed on it in old Spanish. It's not on that painting at all, but an entirely different one.

I don't particularly care if it is 'good for poetry' or not as I've been in it for the long haul for a few decades now but I'm sure these programmes have been more than enough to improve poetry's image in the public's perception while the election to Professor of Poetry at Oxford has been reduced to a shameful political fracas.

Griff Rhys Jones did his bonhomie-based best to include as many aspects of the poetry world as he could, even if it did include a 'slam', although he was presumably preaching to the converted as to 'why poetry matters'. Nobody who thought it doesn't was likely to be watching.

We still have Milton to go, plus Simon Armitage on Gawain, and a life of T.S. Eliot. Get there if you can and see the land we once were proud to own. Not just poetry, which is a wonderful land in itself when presented properly, but also television.

It still has it uses, it doesn't all have to be pointless shiny glamour. It won't always be the Poetry Season and it didn't ought to be either but one might think that the BBC could stick one poetry programme hidden away late at night on BBC4 on whichever day of the week they please.

The point is, although it is unlikely that 10 million viewers will ever agree, that John Donne, Carol Ann Duffy and George Mackay Brown- to name just those representatives of our poetry world- are far more interesting, talented and glamorous than anyone that Simon Cowell or Alan Sugar are going to unearth and manipulate. But I'd prefer it remained our secret. I'm just grateful that the licence to watch broadcast material on receiving equipment paid for something worth watching this year. Otherwise it would just have been the snooker, Midsomer Murders and a few Proms, like it normally is.