Seamus Perry and Mark Ford consider poems that have been understood, admired and perhaps criticised for their politics, ranging across several hundred years of literary history.
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
Political Poems is part of the Close Readings podcast collection from the London Review of Books. Listen to this episode ad free, and get full access to all our Close Readings series, including more from Mark and Seamus:
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Seamus Perry and Mark Ford consider poems that have been understood, admired and perhaps criticised for their politics, ranging across several hundred years of literary history.
Mark Ford is Professor of English at University College, London, and Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford.
Political Poems is part of the Close Readings podcast collection from the London Review of Books. Listen to this episode ad free, and get full access to all our Close Readings series, including more from Mark and Seamus:
Sign up to the Close Readings subscription to listen ad free and to all our series in full:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/ppapplesignup
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/ppsignup
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
As an undergraduate, Seamus Heaney visited Station Island several times, an ancient pilgrimage site traditionally associated with St Patrick and purgatory. Decades later, Heaney worked through competing calls for political engagement and his long-lapsed Catholicism in ‘Station Island’, a poem he described as an ‘exorcism’.
A dreamlike reworking of Dante’s Purgatorio, ‘Station Island’ describes Heaney’s encounters with the ghosts of childhood acquaintances, literary heroes and victims of the Troubles. Seamus and Mark explore Heaney’s unusually autobiographical poem, which wrestles with the inescapability of politics.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
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Further reading in the LRB:
Paul Muldoon: Sweaney Peregraine
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n20/paul-muldoon/sweaney-peregraine
Seamus Perry: We Did and We Didn’t
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n09/seamus-perry/we-did-and-we-didn-t
John Kerrigan: Hand and Foot
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n11/john-kerrigan/hand-and-foot
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