Waterskiing on Poetry - Waving hello to poems and poets with Neil Elder

Neil Elder
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A light-touch exploration of poems and poetry with Neil Elder, long-time English teacher and prize-winning poet. Taking inspiration from the Billy Collins poem, 'An Introduction To Poetry', Neil puts poems alongside each other to see how life looks when seen through the lenses of different poets. There will be poems everyone knows, and plenty that are new to listeners. Not heavy, but certainly illuminating.

  1. Oct 4

    Ep 19 - Marriage, Maps & WD40

    Marriage - poems about marriage, hearts, flowers, clichés. But wait! These poems are not the obvious kind. Instead, we see the fiddly bits of a relationship, the bits that hold the whole thing together. In this episode we wave hello to poems that celebrate a deeper and more patient kind of love. U.A Fanthorpe transforms the prosaic aspects of long-term relationships into something of mythic level in her poem Atlas. While Dennis Scott struggles to negotiate life with another in Marrysong - its all about perseverance. Oh, and Michael Blumenthal pops up with his poem A Marriage - ceilings never felt so romantic. Yes, THREE poems in this episode. The poems can be read here -- Atlas - https://weeklypoems.brookes.ac.uk/2007/11/19/atlas/ A Marriage - https://millerbrian.com/stories-n-stuff/2017/1/10/a-marriage-by-michael-blumenthal Marrysong - https://genius.com/Dennis-scott-poet-marrysong-annotated

  2. Oct 1

    Rain In The Rainbow

    Ep 18 - Pain and pleasure, rain and rainbows, tenderness at the toughest times. We hold two up to the light and wave hello to Chrissy Banks and her poem The Gift and Nettles by Vernon Scannell. The works consider the way love shows through in challenging times, and how the desire to protect those we love is hard wired. Nettles by Scannell can be read here https://allpoetry.com/Nettles The Gift by Chrissy Banks does not appear to be easily found on the internet - fragments Prezi presentations exist, but the poem itself ... EDIT - Chrissy and I have been in touch - you can now read The Gift at https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14o7MmdKgtb/

  3. Sep 17

    The Grass Keeps Growing

    Ep 17 - When we say 'war poetry' we think of trenches, mud and gas. But what happens when the fighting has ended? Who clears up? How do lives go on? In these extraordinary poems Carl Sandburg and Wisława Szymborska help us think about wars in ways we usually do not. Do we need to remember every battle? Do we need to move on with our lives or is that disrespectful? Against man's absurd behaviour, ultimately nature endures (we hope). Read the poems here - The End And The Beginning - Szymborska ⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52955/the-end-and-the-beginning⁠ Grass - Sandburg - ⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45034/grass-56d2245e2201c⁠

  4. Sep 10

    Know your Limits

    Ep 16 - Where is the divide between healthy ambition and something more dangerous and foolhardy? Do we need to get to Mars? In There Are Roughly Zones, Robert Frost explores man's desire to push boundaries with a peach tree as a metaphor. In Polar Bear George Bilgere examines the dividing line between the great wide younder and man's place in the world. We hold the poems up to the light to see what we can learn about our own ambitions. You can read the poems here - Robert Frost - https://voetica.com/poem/920 George Bilgere - https://newohioreview.org/2020/11/06/polar-bear/

  5. Jun 30

    Ep15. Identity Crisis?

    In this episode we consider the desire to be one of the crowd at the expense of your real identity. Would you deny your parents and your background so that you could 'fit in'? Or is that idea outdated in 2026, are we ready to proclaim who we really are? We explore these ideas via 'Dance Class' by Hannah Lowe, and 'In A White Town' by Daljit Nagra. You can find the poems on these links - https://proletarianpoetry.com/2015/02/23/dance-class-by-hannah-lowe/ https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-19357_IN-A-WHITE-TOWN The interview I refer to with Daljit Nagra is here - https://aestheticamagazine.com/daljit-nagra/

  6. May 10

    Buffaloes And The Blue Planet

    Ep 14. Recorded on Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday, this episode treads an ecological path. We explore 'The Flower-Fed Buffaloes' by Vachel Lindsay, and 'Report To Wordsworth' by Boey Kim Cheng. Both poems raise the matter of how human activity impacts the environment - and at the end of our skim across those poetic waters, I offer my poem in honour of Sir David. To read the poems go here - https://allpoetry.com/The-Flower-Fed-Buffaloes⁠https://big-slate.com/study/en/c/85e7bbea/report-to-wordsworth-boey-kim-cheng To hear Vachel Lindsay read the poem go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-GyPsFcnLQ

  7. Apr 5

    Ep 13. Who's Leaving Who?

    Leaving home ain’t easyOn the one you're leaving home (Brian May) In this episode we explore the inevitable sense of love and loss that has to happen when children become independent and move beyond the orbit of their parents. Our exploration of this theme is built around the poems 'Walking Away' by C.Day Lewis, and 'To A Daughter Leaving Home' by Linda Pastan; two poems we hold up to the light and admire. Does the parent feel the dread of starting school more than the child? And how can riding a bicycle be a metaphor for growing up? We discover in this episode - oh, and we reference a couple of songs by Queen that also deal with the process of leaving. The poems can be found here - C. Day Lewis - ⁠https://holytrinity.academy/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Walking-Away-Worksheet-1.pdf⁠ Linda Pastan - ⁠https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-075/to-a-daughter-leaving-home/⁠

  8. Mar 15

    Ep 12. Imagined Museums

    Imagine a museum of the future. What would you put in it? Would you put your vinyl, video cassettes and cheque book in there? Oh, and what would you leave out of the museum display? Do you have anything that is just too valuable and personal for the public gaze? Are we in danger of forgetting things if they are not preserved? When we all move to Mars some time in the future, could emotions like love become concepts from the past? These thoughts are all explored in the poems held up to the light in this episode. Tracy K Smith's poem The Museum of Obsolescence and Rebecca Lindenberg's The Museum of Lost Objects take us into imagined museums. You can read the poems here https://genius.com/Tracy-k-smith-the-museum-of-obsolescence- annotatedhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55526/in-the-museum-of-lost-objects The interview with Rebecca Lindenberg that I refer to is here - https://www.cincinnatireview.com/on-craft/poetry-at-the-museum/

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A light-touch exploration of poems and poetry with Neil Elder, long-time English teacher and prize-winning poet. Taking inspiration from the Billy Collins poem, 'An Introduction To Poetry', Neil puts poems alongside each other to see how life looks when seen through the lenses of different poets. There will be poems everyone knows, and plenty that are new to listeners. Not heavy, but certainly illuminating.

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