Tim continues to feel belligerent, and gets a bit biblical with Wilfred Owen's "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young". Some people interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac as one of redemption and grace. But not Owen . . .

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Tim is in a belligerent mood and introduces Andrew to a poem by Polish Nobel-Prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska, translated by Joanna Trzeciak. As well as discussing the aftermath of war, Tim and Andrew discuss how poetry in translation works - what stays constant and what you might lose (or gain) by reading poetry in a different language to that in which it was composed.

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"Frost at Midnight" is one of Coleridge's most well-known poems, and a fantastic example of what has come to be known as the Greater Romantic Lyric. Tim and Andrew discuss Coleridge's attitudes to the natural world, to childhood, and to the imagination - and how the French Revolution inspired poets in this period to imagine a new world.

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Tim shares his love for barren, windswept, bleak bird watching in this discussion of R. S. Thomas's poem 'Sea Watching'. Is there music in this scalpel-like poem? How and where do you find God? And why is the poem laid out in funny ways? Listen to find out.

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Best known as a World War One poet, Edward Thomas also wrote some beautiful descriptions of English rural life. In "As the Team's Head Brass", he brings these two subjects together and wonders about how war affects those left behind.

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Sylvia Plath is one of the great American poets of the twentieth-century, as famous as much for her personal life as for her poetry. But how far should you allow our knowledge of her biography to influence how we read her poetry? Tim and Andrew think about this as they discuss "Poppies in July".

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How do you find your bearings in a new place, and can you transplant cultural touchstones from one side of the world to another? Peter Bland has a go at doing just that in "Wellington".

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The patron saint of country vicars, George Herbert imagines a conversation with Love as a barmaid. Tim and Andy unpack the poem (and Tim points out the naughty bits), and they discuss how the poem was once shared amongst Herbert's friends as a private, deathbed confession.

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A bar room brawl is brewing but it's not what you might expect. In this poem, Robert Sullivan merges myth and reality, Maori and European and plots a course for New Zealand's future.

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How do you overcome grief and loss? And what des it feel like when you do? Mary Oliver's "Heavy" tries to answer those questions, and talks about them in some beautifully controlled verse.

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In this episode, Tim and Andrew take a look at one of the Victorian period's most popular poets, LEL - Letitia Elizabeth Landon - and her poem, "The Factory". Bringing together moral outrage against child labour in a popular ballad form, LEL's poem comes from a time when poetry and literature in general was at the forefront of social change.

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In this episode, Andrew and Tim discuss Sonnet 130, and agree it's a great option for anyone looking for a wedding reading. Along the way, they cover blazons, sonnet structure, and whether Shakespeare is all he's cracked up to be.

(Opening music from #Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/monkeys-spinning-monkeys. License code: NKEUTJBFSPQXVRGD)

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The previous few episodes have been about centre-periphery dynamics, and in this episode former New Zealand Poet Laureate and general all-round legend Bill Manhire offers his thoughts on living as a Kiwi in London. Bonus: you get to find out what a "zoetrope" is.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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