Want to know what's getting us inspired here, behind the issue desk at the NPL? We've been revelling in our treasures from the mysterious & inimitable Rosemary Tonks. You know that feeling when you wait patiently for a sentence to arrive, and then three come along at once? We rediscovered these beauties up in our Rare Books room (which only NPL staff have the key to, sorry... but you can ask us to fetch items for you to see in the library!).

There's nothing quite like hearing a poet performing their own work. We knew Tonks was hidden in our audio-visual collections somewhere... and here she is, captured in 'The Poet Speaks' (a series recorded in London by the British Council) on 22 July 1963! As the needle scratched like a pen, it was as if she was reading to us in the library — her slow, sultry diction in 'Badly Chosen Lover' hanging in the air like sixties cigarette smoke... "leaving only mud and cabbage stumps".