James Fenton is an old friend, and like me he has covered conflict as a journalist. He brings the lived experience of this into the poems he writes on this theme. Out of many, I chose 'Jerusalem'. Both of us I think once loved this city, for its architecture, its history, but now, for me it’s become a symbol of a conflict that never ends. 'Jerusalem' takes me through that process of gradual disillusionment: 'I am not afraid of you, I fear the things you make me do.'

From Fenton it was a logical route to W. H. Auden, whose voice is there behind Fenton’s. 'The Fall of Rome', read in the poet’s sonorous tone, is a poem I have been reading for years – and am still puzzling over. It’s of course about the decline of empire, any empire, a redolent theme for now, but what Auden captures so well is the mix of decadence and mundanity (I love the clerk complaining 'I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK'). I never quite understand the reindeers at the poem’s end, but I don’t mind, I go with it. Auden is dealing with the kind of things I deal with – and I trust him.

And now two female voices, both rooted in conflict too and speaking out with great clarity. Choman Hardi’s 'Escape Journey, 1988' takes me on a flight out of Kurdistan across the mountains through the eyes of a 14-year old girl who is suddenly made aware she is one in a cycle of flight. There’s that devastating last line as the girl observes her stumbling father: 'But then again, he’s been here before.'

Carolyn Forche’s 'Letter to a City Under Siege' is inspired by the attack on Sarajevo but it could be any besieged city across the years, the centuries. The poem is full of details I have witnessed myself – flimsy cardboard worn as a defence against gunfire, makeshift tunnels made for escape (it makes me think of my friend and colleague Marie Colvin making her way along a sewage tunnel into the besieged suburb of Baba Mar in Syria where she was killed). But it’s also acute in its criticism of the language used (misused) by journalists in warfare: 'There is no shortage of food, water, medicine – food, water, medicine are withheld.' Poets find the right words when we cannot. The glowing oranges at the poem’s end are a small light of hope, but then they are extinguished too.

Finally, I chose Billy Collins' poem 'Forgetfulness'. This is a poem I go to when I want to persuade anyone who doesn’t think they like poetry. It always works! They are won over by the relatable charms of Billy’s voice, as he piles on the detail of the things we all forget – beginning with book titles and authors and working through quadratic equations and capitals of countries: 'whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue'. It’s not mere anecdote either, there’s a darker note at the end, a foreshadowing of dementia, even oblivion. You can hear it in the recording, as the laughter mounts then subsides at the end.