Catholics are not as impressed by Bible-reading, but I grew up a Protestant, before converting, and am familiar with the King James Bible, along with Shakespeare , what you get when you are stranded on BBC's Desert Island. Today it has been acted out on Radio 4 (BBC), and has been impressive (if at times, even for a literate Christian poet, tedious). There is an urge to render the Bible a secular document of immense poetic value, which, secondarily, it has become, and Ecclesiastes , especially, reminds me how much of Roth 's Nemesis is (literally) biblical. Without this great Judaeo-Christian work, as we all know (and are endlessly told), there could be no meaningful English literature, which, at any rate, only becomes mainly or mostly post-King James post- Beckett , and not even then. Good to have British radio opened up to the Word of God. At the least, it'll do wonders for a new generation of poets.
POETRY, POLITICS, PROVOCATION AND POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 2005 - 20 YEARS AND over 10 million visits - British Library-archived