Caroline Bird

Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan

Prize-winning poet and playwright Caroline Bird reminds us that “we’re all poets when we’re asleep. Writing is trying to find a way to dream while we’re awake”. On Bob Dylan: “You always hear him choosing the dark side of the road”; “What I love is that his songs are full of denial. Whenever the emotion gets too real, he runs away” and “He’s so naïve about love”. On Mr. Tambourine Man, first heard at age eight: “It goes past the point where he’s trying to find a truth”. On Dylan’s lyrics: “He holds the pain lightly in order for it to resonate”. On a characteristic she shares with Dylan: “Writing is like dancing on hot sand. You can’t stand still”.

Simon Armitage said of Caroline: “You don’t know if a bullet will come out of the barrel or a flag with the word 'BANG' on it”. We do know that we’ve rarely had more fun recording a podcast.

Caroline Bird was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics. A two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 - when she was fifteen. Her 2020 collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The Guardian and The Telegraph. Her most recent book, Rookie: Selected Poems (2022) is taken from her first six poetry collections. Caroline’s plays include her version of Euripedes' The Trojan Women, The Trial Of Dennis the Menace, Chamber Piece, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Iphigenia Quartet and Red Ellen.

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Recorded 13th July 2022

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