There have been many poems over the years featured in television programmes, some of them factual poems, some of them happy and some of them sad. Whatever the poem usually someone in life can relate to it. You would firstly imagine that poems would probably be featured in the old style television programme such as sense and sensibility, but you might be surprised to learn that they have also featured in comedy sitcoms. I have written some poems myself, but felt that poetry is often overlooked in today’s society as people are more interested in watching TV than reading poetry. 

Although people will have heard poems on TV in various different programmes, most people are unaware of the fact, and I wanted to get people interested in poetry, even if it was just for a short while. I approached the television networks about my idea, and discussed in depth with each one, just how we could get people to listen to some of the great love poems (Liebesgedichte) of all time. We discussed the fact that it would be a good idea to run each poem at the end of a popular soap or TV programme, but then we had second thoughts as most people turn the television off when the programme they are interested in has ended. So we decided to run the poems immediately before the first advert break. 

From my point of view I felt this was ideal and would really get the people listening, the first poem that was run on TV was a love poem, the second one I picked was a poem called ‘I love you’ (Ich liebe dich) I felt they worked well, and would really get the viewers to listen, but this was just my opinion and I needed to know for sure whether it had worked. So I went into town and conducted a survey after the first two poems had been aired to find out whether people had listened.

The results were rather positive, whilst some of the people questioned said that they had not heard the poems, others said they had enjoyed them and it had been a lovely change to listen to poetry. I also asked whether reading poems would be something that they would consider doing in the future, and to my amazement 72 percent of the public said yes. I consider my venture of airing great love poems on TV a great success.</