David Harsent: Fire Songs (Part 2)

In this two-part Faber Podcast we talk to David Harsent whose eleventh poetry collection 'Fire Songs' was published in August. Writing about his previous collection, 'Night', Fiona Sampson in the Independent wrote: ‘Truly significant poets write like no one else, and David Harsent is both sui generis, and unsurpassed.’ Part one of this interview focused on the themes of Fire, War and its aftermath, and the Rat, an ineradicable creature that occupies the margins of our dreams. In part two Harsent discusses his experience of living with tinnitus, and concludes with a discussion of religion, in particular the disquieting figure of trickster Christ. Part two also includes a complete reading of the first of the 'Fire Songs'.