Listening to Andrew Motion on a recent You and Yours talking about the benefits of reading poetry to people with dementia – he's patron of the innovative charity Kissing it Better – brought home the unique power of spoken verse. A decade ago, Motion got chatting to a recording producer, Richard Carrington, about how frustrating it was that many important poets had not been properly recorded. They set up the Poetry Archive, a systematic attempt to record significant poets for posterity, and to make those recordings accessible to the public.

Poetryarchive.org has recently been relaunched, which is great, not only because nine-year-old websites tend to be in need of a facelift, but because I'd totally forgotten about it. As with so many websites, the Poetry Archive was something I stumbled on years ago, rhapsodised about how brilliant it was, then never visited again.

It was delightful to explore the modernised, easier to navigate site and listen again to Tennyson reading his The Charge of the Light Brigade, Sylvia Plath reciting Parliament Hill Fields, Hillaire Beloc singing Tarantella. For classic poems where no recording exists, contemporary poets or actors step in. I enjoyed the "guided tours", where experts including Clive James and Dr Rowan Williams pick out their favourite recordings. There is also a new site dedicated to children's poetry.

Does it get around the problem of people like me forgetting it exists? It needs to: as well as Arts Council funding, the Poetry Archive relies on public donations. The new site is more integrated with social media – users can share playlists of favourite poems. What I would love is the option to receive poems by email at chosen times during the day. Imagine waking up to Adam Foulds reading The Sun Rising by John Donne.