30/12/2012
Roger McGough presents a diverse selection of listeners' poetry requests on the theme of time. The readers are Ian McElhinney and John Mackay.
Roger McGough presents a diverse selection of listeners' poetry requests on the theme of time. The readers are Ian McElhinney and John Mackay.
Pianos, mountains, train stations and even coffee provide the inspiration for poems on the theme of time. There's a dystopian vision of earth in the future in a poem by Sheenagh Pugh. Thomas Hardy wonders what people may say of him when he's gone in 'Afterwards', whilst Cecil Day Lewis's meditation on New Year's Eve urges us to cherish the 'dying, but never dead' state of now.
There's a rarely heard piece of archive of the poet Tony Harrison reading his poem Old Soldiers which was inspired by his childhood memory of a repeating image on a coffee label that seemed to stretch to infinity. Jackie Kay also reads her own work in a moving dialect poem about an old friendship.
Other poets reading their own work include two winners of the recent Gardeners' World Magazine's Poetry Competition.
There are also a few significant pauses at train stations with poems by John Montague and Tomas Transtr枚mer. John Dryden's speech 'When I Consider Life' is a glorious rant, and Tennyson roars to the world in this poem 'I Stood on a Tower in the Wet.'
Producer: Sarah Langan.
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This Week's Poems
Between Mountain and Sea
By Norman MacCaig
From Norman MacCaig 鈥� Collected Poems
Publisher:听 Chatto & Windus
听
All Legendary Obstacles听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听
By John Montague
From John Montague 鈥� New Selected Poems
Publisher: Bloodaxe
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The Station听听听听听听听听
By Tomas Transtromer
Translated by Robin Fulton
From Tomas Transtromer 鈥� New Collected Poems
Publisher:听 Bloodaxe
听
Mrs Thorpe's Arithmetic听听听
By Fiona Ritchie Walker
From Gardeners鈥� World Magazine
听
The Yellow Bittern听听听听听听听听听听
By Cathal Bui Mac Giolla Ghunna
Translated by Thomas Kinsella
From The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse
Publisher:听 Oxford University Press
听
Fiere听听听听听
By Jackie Kay
From Fiere
Publisher: Picador
听
Afterwards听听听听听听听听
By Thomas Hardy
From The Oxford Authors 鈥� Thomas Hardy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
听
Extract from Do You Think We'll Ever Get to See Earth, Sir?听听听听听听听听听听
By Sheenagh Pugh
From Twentieth Century Anglo-Welsh Poetry
Publisher:听 Seren
听
Old Soldiers听听听听听听听
By Tony Harrison
From Tony Harrison 鈥� Collected Poems
Publisher: Viking
听
Extract from New Year鈥檚听 Eve听听听听听
By Cecil Day-Lewis
From C. Day-Lewis 鈥� The Complete Poems
Publisher: Sinclair-Stevenson
听
Piano听听听听
By D H Lawrence
From D H Lawrence 鈥� The Complete Poems
Publisher: Penguin
听
The Family Piano听听听听听听听听听听听听听
By John Montague
From Smashing the Piano
Publisher: The Gallery Press
听
Extract from Aureng-Zebe 鈥� 鈥淲hen I consider life..鈥澨�
By John Dryden
From Aureng-Zebe
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
听
I Love the Winter鈥檚 Darkness听听听听听
By Emily Lumley
Published in Gardeners鈥� World Magazine
听
I Stood on a Tower in the Wet听听听
By Alfred Lord Tennyson听
From The Oxford Treasury of Time Poems
Publisher: Oxford University PressBroadcasts
- Sun 30 Dec 2012 16:30蜜芽传媒 Radio 4
- Sat 5 Jan 2013 23:30蜜芽传媒 Radio 4