This Writing Life

Part two of our conversation with Simon Barnes, the award-winning sportswriter, revered birdlover and Chair of 2020's Keats-Shelley Prizes.  ----more---- Our annual theme is 'Songbirds', to mark the composition 200 years ago of PB Shelley’s To a Skylark and the publication in book form of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, which made Simon the perfect choice as Chair.  In which Simon discusses the repertory singers that are skylarks and nightingales, how and why they sing (and does this make them sexy), whether Keats' nightingale could sing and fly - and does that spoil the poem?  After this, we move onto the extinction threats looming over both birds - not to mention the planet as a whole - and whether poetry can help sharpen our awareness of humankind's mortality?  Simon Barnes is unique in the world of literature. How many revered sports writers are also revered nature writers too? Off the top of my head I can think of one: Simon Barnes himself.  For many years the chief sports of the Times, he cover