Spring Afternoon

The first woman ever to be nominated for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry, and in 2003 was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. She trained as a teacher. She was head of the English department at Cheltenham Ladies' College when she felt her life was in crisis. Against the advice of her family, she quit teaching to take a job as a clerk in a hospital for neuro-psychiatric patients. Within days, she knew that she had to bear witness to what the patients were experiencing. Her first collection of poems, Side Effects, was published in 1978 about the lives of the patients she saw. (From Desert Island Discs, May 2007.)