Just stumbled across this. For those not fussed about football, but interested in other sporting or competitive endeavours, here’s Edwin Morgan’s poem about the (completely fictional) World Jigsaw Final. What a truly wonderful, clever and witty poem. I wish I could write something like this!
This week’s poetry recording is by Jackie Kay, who had two brilliant poems in the anthology I wrote about on Sunday. It’s a wonderful poem about dialect, about the loss of language and the loss of sense of place that happens when we move. It happens to us all that move. I’ve lost most of my Somerset dialect since I moved away, though I still call a wasp by it’s proper name, ‘jasper’. I wonder…
This week’s random poetry recording is of Sylvia Plath reading one of her most famous poems. She was a brilliant reader of her own work. Whether or not you’ve heard it before I’d be interested to know your thoughts. Incidentally, there’s a close reading of the poem on the British Library website here if you want to find out more. https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/a-close-reading-of-lady-lazarus Having struggled with my own mental health issues in the past, I’ve not really…
Something for World Oceans Day. This poem captures the experience so well. We used to go on holiday as a family to the Pembrokeshire coast, and it was the third, or fourth time that we went out that we finally managed to encounter a pod of dolphins. Truly magical. You don’t need to travel halfway around the world to experience something special in nature. I hope you enjoy the recording.
If you haven’t heard this yet then it’s well worth a listen. Recorded on wax cylinders in 1890, it may be the oldest recording in the Poetry Archive. Yes it’s crackly, but you can hear the cadence and power of Tennyson’s diction. I bet he would have done pretty well at a poetry slam if such events had existed in late victorian England! I’ve shared the poem below the audio link in case you want…
I thought I would start delving into the marvellous poetry archive of audio recordings. Something to share regularly on a Tuesday night perhaps? If so, let me know your favourites, and I’ll share them here to this blog’s gradually widening audience. Here’s Charles Causley reading Eden Rock. That last line. Phew. https://poetryarchive.org/poem/eden-rock/ Charles Causley (1917-2003) was born and brought up in Launceston, Cornwall and lived there for most of his life. When he was only…