Thursday, October 04, 2007
Isn’t every day?
As Cyberscribe points out, it’s National Poetry Day [don’t ask which nation.. - Ed] And to mark it the BBC have taken the obvious route and asked some of our local political respresentatives which poems, and why.. and some of them respond by taking the obvious route.. Now go read a poem. Or listen to one. And the poet laureate Andrew Motion, quoting Keats, “we hate poetry that has a palpable design on us”. Or listen to a Northern Star talk about her favourite poets.[24.5Mb mp3 file]
Pete Baker @ 01:29 PM
Christ. Dawm Purvis and Deeney are clearly not big literature fans.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 02:18 PMAnd what is wrong with Wordsworth and Kipling? Granted they may be obvious choices but not necessarily a sign of a lack of knowledge or regard for literature. What’s your favourite Ziznivy? Personally I like The Kraken by Tennyson.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 03:32 PMPete, do you remember that link you provided some months back to astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnett’s lecture on her favourite poems? That was truly wonderful.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 03:41 PMThis link [24.5Mb mp3 file], susan?
I remember it well.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 03:49 PMThanks, Pete! I just found it myself, here:
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/iphone.php?sid=993144
It was much easier to find when I tried Gooogling Jocelyn Bell Burnell, instead of Jocelyn Bell Burnett.
I am just not on a roll this week. In any case, it really is engaging and enlightening to listen to. Thanks again, Pete!
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 03:58 PMIf only they had asked the Paisley lads they could have triggered a reawakening of interest in the old Suibhne poem. They must know of it.
Someone chose “If”. Right so. And someone else chose “The Stolen Child”. Who would’ve thought it?
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 06:55 PMThey are elected pols being interviewed by the Beeb. They were hardly going to go for Gerard McKeown’s “Your Bathroom, An Apology” or Margaret Atwood’s “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing.”
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 07:52 PMThat’s ok then.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 07:57 PMFair enough so.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 08:24 PMWhatever the merits of a national poetry day, if the BBC is going to get involved, why doesn’t it make an effort? Reithianism did have its value.
“The Stolen Child” by the way has long been one of my favourite poems.
Side issue - SF jogging along on a British national day.
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 08:40 PMIs that ‘pith’ as in helmet, pith?
Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 09:05 PMpith @ 09:40 PM:
Fair dos: the Beeb has been running Poetry Please (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/poetryplease.shtml) for years!
And they’re none too nationalistic about it either. The BBC Library is a great reservoir of Irish writers in English.
I’m grateful for what I get.
Bring back Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur, I say: not a dry seat in the house:
So all day the noise of battle roll’d...Posted by on Oct 04, 2007 @ 09:46 PMCysgid Lloegyr llydan nifer
A lleufer yn eu llygaidYou lot will just never get real poetry.....
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 05:48 AMDewi,
Hah! Two can play at that game:
δΈδΊδ½δΊ¨
δΈδΌ
δΈδΈ¦δ»δ½
δΉδΊAnd mine rhymes, yours doesnae :0)
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 07:17 AMLol Dawkins - love the alliteration .......
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 07:40 AMLOL @ Dewi
(tho’ it’s so much hooey.)Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 07:53 AMI can’t wait till National Book Day, and they ask them about books. Ask Jackie McDonald what his favourite book is, you know the respons, A Farewell to Arms (bah dah bah)
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 08:29 AMMalcolm Redfellow,
Fair point. The BBC for all its faults is a superb institution. It’s the trite end of it that irks me these days. I seldom bother with the news but I did see a “sports report” the other day where some cheeky chappy was having a go at water-skiing. It was like a cross between Blue Peter and Alan Partridge.
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 08:54 AMSusan, very good.
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 08:58 AMpith,
“The BBC for all its faults is a superb institution.”
Agreed. I wish I’d more time to listen to Radio 4. Far as I’m concerned it’s still a “national treasure”.
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 09:02 AMRadio 4 really is a treasure it should be put in a box and buried.
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 09:55 AMEach to his own, Puddingspoon :0)
Posted by on Oct 05, 2007 @ 12:45 PMPreludes by T.S Eliot Dessertspoon.
“You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.”Both choices I criticised indicated that the only poetry those politicians knew was read at school.
Wordsworth’s insipid nature bollocks I’ve hated since I was 14 and If is such a clichΓ©.
Posted by on Oct 08, 2007 @ 08:09 AMWow. To hate something, anything all the way from 14 years of age. That’s something. Unless you are 15.
Posted by on Oct 08, 2007 @ 10:31 AMpith,
I can understand it though. “The Daffodils” must rank among the cheesiest poems of all time. I too had to suffer it at school. I always thought the first line was completely OTT. A lonely cloud? Floating on high? How long did it last before being zapped by the sun (I was a smartass kid). Here from memory is my schoolboy take on the first lines.
I wandered, lonely as a cow
That drops its turds in vales, on hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
Of yummy, scrummy daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Muttering, stuttering at the bees.Ted Hughes, eat thy heart out!
Posted by on Oct 08, 2007 @ 10:59 AM
