I’m very excited about Thursday, when all this year’s new BBC Local poems for National Poetry Day will be revealed! It’s been such an honour to write the poem for Shropshire, my adopted county. This morning I went off to Dawley with Genevieve Tudor from BBC Radio Shropshire. There’s a good reason for going to Dawley, but the actual poem is still embargoed until 3rd October…

We sat on a bench in Dawley, and Genevieve recorded us talking about how the poem came into being, and how it’s made up of three different stories. There was a fourth story, too, but the brief for the poem meant I had to cut it in order to stay under the required 90 seconds. It’s still there in my head. The stories come from different parts of Shropshire, which I liked.

Then I read the poem for her. All will be revealed on National Poetry Day!