7 October 2010 Last updated at 07:26

Audio slideshow: The mouths of poets

The written words of Betjeman, Larkin, Thomas and Tennyson are well known to many an English student - but the voices of the great poets may be less so.

To celebrate National Poetry Day today the British Library has released two new CDs to its popular series of literary spoken word recordings - featuring previously unpublished audio of great British and American poets reading their own works. BBC Radio 4's Today programme has been listening to them.

To see the enhanced content on this page, you need to have JavaScript enabled and Adobe Flash installed.

Black and white archive photos courtesy Getty Images and The Press Association. Colour photographs courtesy Science Photo Library.

Music courtesy KPM Music. Slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 7 October 2010.

Related links:

The British Library

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

More audio slideshows:

Saving the Spitfire

21st Century Inventors

Britain from the Air

Seeing into space