‘Sky Blues Bus’ poem on BBC Radio 3

I’m delighted that my poem ‘Sky Blues Bus’ will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Words and Music on 3rd October 2021, a feature on Coventry and Transport as part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival. ‘Sky Blues Bus’ is published in my pamphlet Birmingham Canal Navigation (Knives Forks & Spoons) and was commissioned by the Centre for Travel Writing Studies at Nottingham Trent University. Warm thanks to everyone involved.

‘Sky Blues Bus’ is written partly ‘in the voice of’ the bus which carried Coventry City Football team through Coventry following their historic victory over Tottenham Hotspur in the 1987 FA Cup final. It also references the bombing of Coventry in 1940 during the second world war. Rory Waterman, discussing this poem in his review of Birmingham Canal Navigation in PN Review, says ‘Our heritage is part of our present, and Yates crashes one into another’. I wrote the poem after encountering the bus in the marvellous Coventry Transport Museum.