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Posted on October 4th 2016
Levi Roots and Radio 4 Talk to Students about William Blake
Radio 4 spent the morning at Harris Girls' Academy East Dulwich making a programme about the life and work of William Blake, presented by musician, television personality, celebrity chef and businessman Levi Roots.
The programme will be broadcast on Sunday 20 November 2016. Find out more or listen again after the broadcast.
Levi, who cites Blake's poem The Tyger as one of his inspirations, met students to talk about why the poet continues to captivate adults and children alike.
He led a lesson with our Year 7s looking in detail at The Tyger, which he said had inspired him since he was a child. "I wanted to get right under the skin of the poem and ask ourselves what all the questions in the poem are about," he said.
Students also walked with Levi and radio producer Natalie Steed on Peckham Rye, where Blake once saw a vision of angels ‘bespangling’ a tree, which led to one of his most famous poems.
Students touched, listened, smelled and breathed in the woods, and made sound recordings to capture their feelings, which they then used to inspire their own compositions.
"I really enjoyed it because we got to express ourselves through nature," said Katherine. "Levi Roots is good because he likes people to really express themselves."
The programme will be broadcast on Radio 4 next month. "I wanted Levi to be part of the programme because he told me The Tyger had such a profound effect on him when he was younger," said Natalie. "And I wanted to talk to students here about what Blake's poems means to them and explore the different ways children see the world."
Blake was a child himself when he walked from central London to Peckham Rye and saw his vision of angels in the tree.
While at the school, Levi Roots also addressed all our students in special assemblies, to talk about his fascinating story and how he came to be where he is today, and the importance of poetry and music in his life. "When I first heard William Blake's poetry it influenced me and made me fall in love with words," he told the students.
Levi talked about his younger years and described his difficulty in finding focus. Eventually he realised he was able to turn his life around and found the resilience to make a success of his ideas – a great lesson for our girls.
He also spoke about how his grandmother and her recipes had inspired him to make his own famous Reggae Reggae sauce.
Principal Carrie Senior welcomed Levi Roots to the school at the start of the morning. "We were delighted he spent the time talking to students about the importance of poetry and music and the influence it can have on our lives," she said.
Other Black History Month stories: East Dulwich Picturehouse project; Steel Pan Band sensation; Knife of Dawn with Hannah Kendal, A Man of Good Hope at Young Vic.
