Modern-ish Poets: Series 1

London Review of Books
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In their first Close Readings series, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford considers the lives and works of Modernist and almost-Modernist poets, from A. E. Housman to Seamus Heaney. Modern-ish Poets is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books. Subscribe here or on the London Review of Books channel and access all our Close Readings series in full. Find our channel page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/channel/london-review-of-books/id6450677311

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Episodes

  1. EPISODE 1

    Philip Larkin

    ‘Why is Larkin so different from other poets of today?’ asked John Bayley in his first piece about the poet for the LRB, published in 1983. By the time his second appeared in our pages ten years later, contributors including Barbara Everett, Frank Kermode, Alan Bennett, Ian Hamilton and Christopher Ricks had also written for the paper about the ‘man on the jetty,’ as Bennett described him at the end of his review of Andrew Motion’s biography, ‘who might be anybody’. The eloquent contradictions of his life and work have made Larkin a subject we’ve returned to more than most throughout the LRB’s 38-year history. To continue that tradition, we invited two regular contributors, Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, to discuss Philip Larkin with specific reference to several of these articles, some of which will be unlocked for the next week or so. Further reading on Larkin in the LRB: John Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleylarkinpod Christopher Ricks: https://lrb.me/rickslarkinpod Ian Hamilton: https://lrb.me/hamiltonlarkinpod Alan Bennett: https://lrb.me/bennettlarkinpod Jenny Diski: https://lrb.me/diskilarkinpod Barbara Everett: https://lrb.me/everettlarkinpod

    1 hr

  2. EPISODE 2 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    W.H. Auden

    Mark and Seamus discuss life and work of W.H. Auden, from the influence of his parents and his political development, to how his poetry emerged from a meeting of English tradition with high modernism, and its formal response to the fractured nature of his times. Further reading on Auden in the LRB: Seamus Heaney https://lrb.me/heaneyaudenpod Stefan Collini https://lrb.me/colliniaudenpod Barbara Everett https://lrb.me/everettaudenpod Alan Bennett https://lrb.me/bennettaudenpod

    1h 7m

  3. EPISODE 3 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Elizabeth Bishop

    Mark and Seamus look at the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop, the east-coast American poet who enjoyed a limited audience, and published relatively little, in her lifetime, but whose reputation has grown enormously since her death. They discuss her exploratory approach to form, the way she domesticates what seem like heroic and mythical enterprises, and the dialectic in her work between the emotional disruption inherited from her childhood and her artistic commitment to perfectionism. Further reading by and on Bishop in the LRB: Elizabeth Bishop: 'Apartment in Leme' https://lrb.me/rainebishoppod Susannah Clapp https://lrb.me/clappbishoppod Craig Raine https://lrb.me/rainebishoppod Helen Vendler https://lrb.me/vendlerbishoppod

    58 min

  4. EPISODE 4 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Thomas Hardy

    Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Thomas Hardy, with its blend of bitterness of tenderness, its intense dramatisations of loss and grief, and its inversion of traditional tropes of love poetry to anticipate the attitudes of later 20th century writers. Further reading on Hardy in the LRB: Donald Davie https://lrb.me/daviehardypod Hugh Haughton https://lrb.me/haughtonhardypod Dinah Birch https://lrb.me/birchhardypod Patrick McGuiness https://lrb.me/mcguinesshardypod James Wood https://lrb.me/woodhardypod

    59 min

  5. EPISODE 5 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Stevie Smith

    Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Stevie Smith, ‘an eccentric poet with a tenacious reputation,’ and a famous performer of her poetry, considering the despair that underlines her best work, its tonal slipperiness, her exceptional facility with rhyme and off-rhyme, and her use of faux-naif personas and perspectives. Further reading on Smith in the LRB: Penelope Fitzgerald https://lrb.me/fitzgeraldsmithpod Susannah Clapp https://lrb.me/clappsmithpod Anthony Thwaite https://lrb.me/thwaitesmithpod Matthew Bevis https://lrb.me/bevissmithpod

    58 min

  6. EPISODE 6 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    A. E. Housman

    Mark and Seamus discuss the life and work of Worcestershire lad A. E. Housman, whose imaginative poetic landscape of a vanishing England in A Shropshire Lad, with its expression of the agony of thwarted love which can find no resolution, became a runaway bestseller during and after the First World War. Further reading on Housman in the LRB: Hugh Lloyd-Jones https://lrb.me/lloydjoneshousmanpod John Bayley https://lrb.me/bayleyhousmanpod Adam Phillips https://lrb.me/phillipshousmanpod Frank Kermode https://lrb.me/kermodehousmanpod Paul Keegan https://lrb.me/keeganhousmanpod

    59 min

  7. EPISODE 7 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Wallace Stevens

    Mark and Seamus look to that great poet of winter and snow, Wallace Stevens, considering his anecdote-proof life, the capitalist economy of his imagination, and his all-American poetry of precise abstraction. Further reading on Stevens in the LRB: Michael Hofmann https://lrb.me/hofmannstevenspod Mark Ford https://lrb.me/fordstevenspod Michael Wood https://lrb.me/woodstevenspod David Trotter https://lrb.me/trotterstevenspod

    59 min

  8. EPISODE 8 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Sylvia Plath

    Mark and Seamus are joined by Joanna Biggs, an editor at the LRB, to look at Sylvia Plath's life and poetry. They consider the balance of biography and mythology in Plath’s work, situating her as a transatlantic, expressionist poet of the Cold War, and drawing on the LRB archive to talk about her funniness, ruthlessness, and uninhibited willingness to go anywhere to win the argument. Further reading on Plath in the LRB: Joanna Biggs https://lrb.me/biggsplathpod Jacqueline Rose https://lrb.me/roseplathpod Elaine Showalter https://lrb.me/showalterplathpod

    1h 6m

  9. EPISODE 9 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Seamus Heaney

    Seamus and Mark discuss the life and work of Seamus Heaney, whose first collection, Death of Naturalist, established him immediately as a leading poetic voice in world in which modernism seemed to have run its course. They look at how his work draws extensively on his childhood, its use of poetic sounds to bind him to his native ground, its intricate engagement with myth, and his questioning of what sort of poetry is appropriate for someone in his social and historical moment. Further reading on Heaney in the LRB: Poems and essays by Heaney https://lrb.me/heaneyheaneypod Colin Burrow https://lrb.me/burrowheaneypod Michael Hofmann https://lrb.me/hofmannheaneypod Stephanie Burt https://lrb.me/burtheaneypod Patrick McGuiness https://lrb.me/mcguinessheaneypod Ian Hamilton https://lrb.me/hamiltonheaneypod

    1h 1m

  10. EPISODE 10 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Robert Lowell

    In the final episode of their series, Mark and Seamus confront Robert Lowell: the Boston Brahmin for whom poetry trumped every other consideration, and whose Cold War ‘confessionalism’ came to exemplify a generation of Americans’ collective trauma; the poet who changed everything, but whose star has somehow fallen in recent years. Further reading on Lowell in the LRB: Karl Miller https://lrb.me/millerlowellpod John Bayley https://lrb.me/bayleylowellpod Michael Hofmann https://lrb.me/hofmannlowellpod Frank Kermode https://lrb.me/kermodelowellpod Colm Tóibín https://lrb.me/toibinlowellpod

    1h 6m
  • 10 Episodes

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In their first Close Readings series, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford considers the lives and works of Modernist and almost-Modernist poets, from A. E. Housman to Seamus Heaney. Modern-ish Poets is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books. Subscribe here or on the London Review of Books channel and access all our Close Readings series in full. Find our channel page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/channel/london-review-of-books/id6450677311

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