DESCRIPTION:
Here's the British poet and journalist Adam Horovitz son of the celebrated jazz poet Michael Horovitz reciting two of his poems based on the Trojan Wars,but with a modern slant "Achilles" & "Diomedes". The video comes from my archive recording made at the 40th anniversary celebrations at The British Library in the summer of 1999 with the exception of one of the six Sundays the event was held outside in the British Libraries Amphitheater hence the traffic noise from the very hectic Kings Cross Road .


In Greek mythology, Achilles (/əˈkɪliːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, Akhilleus, pronounced [akʰilːéu̯s]) was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad. His mother was the nymph Thetis, and his father, Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons.

Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in the heel with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with a poem by Statius in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Because of his death from a small wound in the heel, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a person's point of weakness.
Diomedes (/ˌdaɪəˈmiːdiːz/ or /ˌdaɪˈɒmɪdiːz/[1]) or Diomede (/ˈdaɪəmiːd/;[2] Greek: Διομήδης Diomēdēs "God-like cunning, advised by Zeus"") is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.

He was born to Tydeus and Deipyle and later became King of Argos, succeeding his maternal grandfather, Adrastus. In Homer's Iliad Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax as one of the best warriors of all the Achaeans (behind only Achilles in prowess). Later, he founded ten or more Italian cities. After his death, Diomedes was worshipped as a divine being under various names in Italy and also in Greece.

Born in London in 1971, he moved with his parents to Stroud, Gloucestershire the same year.[2] He has been active as a poet since the 1990s[3] but has been writing since childhood.[4] He released his first pamphlet, Next Year in Jerusalem, in 2004[5] and a second, The Great Unlearning,[6] in 2009. He was the poet in residence for Glastonbury Festival's official website in 2009[7] and was voted onto the Hospital Club 100[8] in 2010 as an emerging talent.[9] His debut collection, Turning, was released by Headland in 2011.[10] He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2012.[11] His next book, to be released by the History Press in June 2014 to coincide with the Laurie Lee centenary celebrations, is A Thousand Laurie Lees, which draws on memoir, myth and literature inspired by Cider with Rosie country.