In the week following the commemorations of the one year anniversary since the death of the Polish Pope, we look at Karol Wojtyla, poet and artist.

Karol Wojtyła was born in Wadowice in 1920. He inherited from his parents a deep fascination with the poetry of the Polish Romanticism. His friends recall that he learned by heart several Romantic poems, including the famous stanzas by Juliusz Slowacki about the Slavic pope.
It was very early that he started to write his own poetry yet initially it was theatre that young Karol turned to as the outlet for his gifts. He lacked the self-aggrandizing qualities often associated with actors. He was a sober, studious boy. Nonetheless, his patriotic passions were perfectly suited to a particular kind of Polish theatre which florished in the early 1930's.

Read on and hear the programme here...