Interview with Owen Sheers by Tom Gatehouse and Rosy Furness from the Beacons Project:

Q:At what time in your life did poetry become more than a hobby? When did you begin to see yourself as a poet?

"I don't think I would have ever thought of poetry as a hobby. It was certainly an interest early on. I think I was very lucky in that poetry crept into my life, it didn't arrive with some sort of fanfare. The schools that I went to when I was very young, 10, 11 years old, quite often we went off on school trips, the teacher would quite often when we came back ask us to write a poem about it.

So poetry was straight away as natural a way of interpreting your experience as taking a photograph, or writing a short story, or painting a picture. Quite early on there was something about the condensed nature of poetry, that essential magic of poetry that over a very small number of words, you have the potential to transport someone, intellectually and emotionally, a great distance.

But when did I begin writing seriously? Well, I won a short story competition at Hay-on-Wye, and part of the prize was a weeks writing up at a residential writing centre up in North Wales, and the only course I could do was a poetry course, and the two tutors there and I met other writers, and I suppose from then on, I wanted to get better at it. That's the important point, when something stops being some kind of a hobby. That's when I started to see myself as a poet. It may sound a bit strange, but I suppose I only really feel like a poet when I'm actually in the act of writing poems.Wales obviously has a great tradition of bards and poets. "

Q:How do you feel Welsh culture has influenced or encouraged your poetry?

"I think it's had a large influence, and it has certainly encouraged my poetry in terms of it being a natural art form. It's much easier for poetry to feel natural when you are in Wales. I know farmers, for example, from where I grew up who also write poetry, and it's not seen as a strange thing to do.

All of that said, I'm not a fluent Welsh speaker, so there's a whole part of the Welsh poetic tradition that I don't feel I have ever accessed. Then again, you are aware that it's there. The most specific influences in Welsh poets: R.S. Thomas, Alun Lewis, more recently Robert Minhinnick, Gwyneth Lewis, all of these people were poets I read first because I felt Welsh and I wanted to know what people who lived in the area that I lived in, how they were writing about it.

All of that said, I don't think I would want to be known as a 'Welsh poet'. I'd always rather be a writer and a poet from Wales. One of the great things about writing is that it should always transcend borders, and whereas the cultural and geographical influences of the place where you grew up are always going to inform you, I don't think that they should swamp you and be claustrophobic either. It's all about being outward-looking from Wales, and Wales is a great place to look out from. "

Q:What other poets or writers have had an influence on your work?

"Aside from the Welsh poets, I was very interested in narrative poetry early on, because I like the idea of still being able to tell a story. There's no reason why a poem can't tell a story. Poets like Robert Frost are very important. Edward Thomas, more recently someone like Keith Douglas, I'm actually working on a one-man play about him. He's important because he manages to strike a really fascinating balance between an incredible economy of language and a very precise perfect lyrical touch."

Q:How do you think poetry can be made more accessible to young people, and also how do you think poetry could get more media coverage?

"I suppose the way that poetry's taught in schools is very important. I know that I had some very good English teachers, I was very lucky. But I don't think we ever had a real live poet come in and read to us. I now do this and a lot of my friends who write also go into schools, so hopefully that's one way of making it accessible and relevant.

People like Simon Armitage very much write about the kind of world that we all live in. It's up to poetry to make itself felt relevant. In terms of media coverage, I'm not sure that poetry should have more media coverage. There are lots of fantastic art forms out there. If the right poetry is written, which really connects and is good, and is of a great standard, I think it'll get the coverage.

Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters was written about all over the place because it was an important book - the death of Larkin again got a lot of coverage because his work was very important. I think it's more important to connect with readers than to try and get slots in the media, if that's a way of getting to readers.

I feel that poetry has quite a good time in the media, obviously not as good as novels. I think you have to accept as well that every generation, every age has its primary medium. We now live in a visual age - film is our primary means of communication. Having said that, I think poetry does really well. Of course, other people would disagree strongly."

Q:What did you get out of your participation in the Beacons Project?

"Tons. It was an amazing access to an incredible variety of minds and thinkers and writers. It just got me really excited about the idea of being able to do that. The idea that there were so many people out there doing really interesting things that I hadn't necessarily been aware of at all. And not just literary writers: anthologists, historians, even politicians talking in a way that I hadn't heard before. Seeing them on stage, being really grilled, I suddenly saw them in this whole other light. It opened doors inside me. I also made some really good friendships."

Q:Tell us about the Dust Diaries and your new play in progress.

"The Dust Diaries was my most recent book, and depending where you buy it, it's either fiction or non-fiction. It's essentially two stories. One is the story of my great uncle Arthur Cripps. He was an Anglican missionary in what was then Southern Rhodesia. He originally went out for two years in 1900, ended up staying there for fifty-two years and over that period went from being part of the spiritual arm of the Empire to being a real thorn in the Empire's side. He was one of the first ever European social activists for African rights and he was also a writer and poet. He used to run literally forty-two miles a day between his parishes.

He was an incredible, eccentric but amazing man who had been forgotten, I felt, when I first found out about it. So the other story's really my search for his story and that took me back to Zimbabwe and I got to travel through Zimbabwe, and he was the key that unlocked the country for me.

The play in progress is about Keith Douglas. When I was 23 or 24 it was Andrew Motion who introduced me to Douglas' poetry. Again like Arthur Cripps, he's a real person who'd been somewhat forgotten and his poetry really spoke to me.

I was lucky enough that the BBC producer said that I could write a piece about him for radio and Joseph Fiennes played Keith Douglas in that. So I wrote to him and said, I think that we've got enough for a one-man stage play, are you interested? And he was, and we're now developing it with the Old Vic. I've never written for stage before - it's a challenge but I'm really enjoying it."

Owen Sheers was interviewed by Tom Gatehouse and Rosy Furness from the Beacons Project