Kate Kennedy Interviewed by Charlie Lee-Potter

Broadcaster and writer Dr Kate Kennedy looks at the life and work of the poet and composer Ivor Gurney whose life was haunted by fighting in World War I and by confinement in a mental asylum.

Kennedy has written the first comprehensive biography of the English poet who wrote some of the most anthologised poems of the war and composed some of the greatest English songs such as Sleep. Kennedy sets his life and work against the backdrop of war and his institutionalisation and looks at the links between madness, suffering and creativity.

Kennedy is a writer and broadcaster who specialises in combining biography, words and music and is a regular on BBC Radio 3. She is Weinrebe Research Fellow and associate director of the Oxford Centre for Life-writing at the University of Oxford. Here she talks to writer, broadcaster and lecturer in English literature Dr Charlie Lee-Potter.