Modern-ish Poets Series 1: Seamus Heaney

Did Dickens ruin Christmas? He was certainly a pioneer in exploiting its commercial potential. A Christmas Carol sold 6,000 copies in five days when it was published on 19 December 1843, and Dickens went on to write four more lucrative Christmas books in the 1840s. But in many wa ...  Show more

Samuel Johnson’s doctor, Robert Levet, had piecemeal medical knowledge at best, was described as an ‘an obscure practiser in physick’ by James Boswell and was only paid for his work with gin. Yet for Johnson this eccentric man deserved a poetic tribute for demonstrating ‘the powe ...  Show more

An episode I've been waiting for from the beginning: Andrew Epstein joins the podcast to talk about John Ashbery, one of the most important poets of the last hundred years, and his beautiful and haunting poem of mid-career, "Street Musicians."Andrew is Professor of English at Flo ...  Show more

Harris Feinsod joins the podcast to talk about William Carlos Williams, his great book of 1923, Spring and All, and one of its strange and unforgettable poems, "To Elsie."Harris is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. He i ...  Show more

What a delight this was, to talk to my friend Walt Hunter about the marvelous Gwendolyn Brooks poem "kitchenette building." Walt is an associate professor and the Chair of the Department of English at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of two books of criticism: Fo ...  Show more

Luke reads verses from a modernised version of this medieval poem, considered one of the masterpieces of Middle English literature.

Listen to hear the rhyme and rhythm of the poetry, the descriptive vocabulary and details of the story, with vocabulary explanations and c ...