Radio 3 Essay

Five leading writers and artists reflect on the ways in which they connect with one of Wales's most famous cultural exports, Dylan Thomas. Linking up from New York, writer, poet and activist Kevin Powell looks at Dylan Thomas's far-reaching influence on Black American writers, from his own introduction to Thomas's words in the new poetry and spoken-word scene happening in New York in the early 90s, to the new wave of Black American artists inspired through hip-hop, spoken word and America's oral tradition. Recorded in front of an audience at the Laugharne Live Festival

Recorded at the Laugharne Live Festival, in the grounds of Laugharne Castle, West Wales. Five leading writers and artists reflect on the ways in which they connect with one of Wales's most famous cultural exports, Dylan Thomas. The poet and writer Gwyneth Lewis, whose words are emblazoned over Wales Millennium Centre, takes a personal journey through the language of Dylan Thomas. She argues that to appreciate the work fully we must understand the poet's rigorous practice and detailed knowledge of poetic history and tradition

Recorded at the Laugharne Live Festival, in the grounds of Laugharne Castle, West Wales. Five leading writers and artists reflect on the ways in which they connect with one of Wales's most famous cultural exports, Dylan Thomas. Andrew Davies reflects on the influence of Dylan Thomas on a child growing up in Wales in the 1950s, with aspirations to be a writer. A day trip to Rhossili beach and a Cornish...

Leading writers and artists reflect on their connections to the work of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas John Goodby explores the ways in which Dylan Thomas's poetry and life crossed boundaries.

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Actor and writer Ian Kelly on actor, playwright, and theatre manager David Garrick

Biographer and journalist Claire Tomalin on the comic actress and future king's muse Dora Jordan.

Novelist and academic Ian Sansom explores the symbolism of beds in literature, art and film, and asks what beds reveal about human nature. 'Beds are where we are most physical, most elemental, and where we experience the great highs and lows of life. Everything significant that happens to us tends to take place in bed'. Certainly many of history's greatest thinkers and writers are thought to have been inspired in bed; G.K. Chesterton wished he had a pencil long enough to write on the ceiling while lying down, Milton is said to have written Paradise Lost in bed, and Truman Capote started his day in bed with coffee, mint tea, sherry and martinis.

Novelist Ian Sansom delves into cupboards and cabinets to explore what they reveal about human nature. Le Corbusier didn't approve of the clutter cupboards encourage, wanting to free our lives of 'junk'; whereas artist Herbert Distel filled a cabinet with trinkets donated by Man Ray, Annette Messager, Andy Warhol, and John Cage - 'a roll-call of twentieth-century conceptualists, creatives, collagists and curators of the curious' in his Museum of Drawers. Ian wonders if the contents of our cupboards really do tell our life stories, complete with all the hopes, dreams and broken promises suggested by unused pasta machines and unfinished jigsaws - or in the end does it all 'amount to nothing, just so much junk?

Philip Hoare is quickly at the water's edge in Sholing, well before the waking hour. Then meetings with many animals are recalled.

Kirsty Gunn is in Sutherland, debating whether to ford the chilly River Brora on an afternoon hike.

John Walsh reckons that 'below' it feels wintry; yet ascend near a village called Steep and spring beckons. But where is he?

Ross Raisin recalls the Yorkshire Wolds, getting greener all the time, and scene of some famous new paintings by David Hockney.