Open Book

This is the second of a two-episode recording of “Hero and Leander,” by Christopher Marlowe -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers the second of the poem's two parts, or Sestiads.

The text is from the Oxford University Press edition of *The Collected Poems* (2006), edited by Patrick Cheney and Brian J. Striar.

This is the first of a two-episode recording of “Hero and Leander,” by Christopher Marlowe -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers the first of the poem's two parts, or Sestiads.

The text is from the Oxford University Press edition of *The Collected Poems* (2006), edited by Patrick Cheney and Brian J. Striar.

This is the second of a two-episode recording of “Pearl,” by an anonymous medieval poet, translated into modern English by Simon Armitage -- and read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 11-20 of the poem.

The text is from the Faber & Faber edition of 2016. 

This is the first of a two-episode recording of “Pearl,” by an anonymous medieval poet, translated into modern English by Simon Armitage -- and read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 1-10 of the poem.

The text is from the Faber & Faber edition of 2016. 

This is the fourth of a four-part recording of “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 38-52 of the poem.

The text is from the Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Poems (1986), edited by Francis Murphy.

This is the third of a four-part recording of “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 27-37 of the poem.

The text is from the Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Poems (1986), edited by Francis Murphy.

This is the second of a four-part recording of “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 16-26 of the poem.

The text is from the Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Poems (1986), edited by Francis Murphy.

This is the first of a four-part recording of “Song of Myself,” by Walt Whitman -- read by Michael Ullyot. It covers sections 1-15 of the poem.

The text is from the Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Poems (1986), edited by Francis Murphy. 

Season 3 of “Open Book” is about reading literature, specifically long-form poetry. Some are old favourites, and some are poems I’ve been meaning to read for years: Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”; Simon Armitage’s modern translation of the medieval dream-vision “Pearl”; and a host of other narrative and lyrical selections. It’s about hearing the language, and not worrying quite so much about interpreting it. 

As ever I welcome comments and suggestions at [email protected] -- and I end this trailer with a reading of Christina Rossetti’s sonnet, “Remember.”

The closing episode of Season 2 is about two giants of late-20th-century poetry: the Poet Laureate Ted Hughes and the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. We’ll read Heaney’s “Punishment,” Hughes’s “Hawk Roosting” and “The Thought-Fox,” and Heaney’s “Digging” — in that order, to draw out shared themes of nature, violence, and the origins of poetry.

This ends Season 2, and the start of the summer sabbatical: a time of pleasure reading planning and reflecting on what's to come in this series. To suggest future topics, particularly on subjects of broad interest (i.e. rather than on particular texts), or to share your thoughts on the show's format and style, please write to [email protected].