“Poetry on the air sounds like the Muses in striped trousers,” George Orwell famously remarked of the readings he organised for the BBC’s Eastern Service during his brief career as a talks producer. Nothing could have been further from this critique of highfalutin pomposity than Radio 4’s contribution to National Poetry Day (8 October), which was at once demotic, inclusive and wide-ranging. But still the result, in all its considerable, schedule-dominating glory, was a quintessential BBC production.For a start, there was the bright, breezy air that customarily attends the corporation’s efforts to bring a little seriousness to prime-time. “The British are brilliant at doing poetry,” claimed the website, beneath a series of pen-and-ink sketches of w