Poems for the Speed of Life

This is Episode 51 of Poems for the Speed of Life. Today's poem is "Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)" by James Baldwin

James Baldwin was an American essayist, novelist, playwright and poet who died in 1987. 

His writing often captured the dual complexity of African-American experience and homosexuality: Baldwin was a gay black man, who left the US in his early 20s to live and work in France, in large part because of the daily indignities of racism in America. 

Despite being friendly with some of the leaders of the Black Civil Rights movement, including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Baldwin nevertheless resisted the straightforward narratives of race that were drawn in some protest literature of the time. 

In the words of one of his biographers, he resented the "categorization of human beings" because categorizations "deny life". 

In this poem we can see something of Baldwin’s awe and wonder for all life’s complexity—its beauty, its love, its desire and its uncertainty.

You can read the poem here

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 50 of the podcast. Sincere thank you to everyone who has listened over these past two months, and thanks also to you this is your first time listening to the podcast.

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Today’s poem is “Hideout” by Desmond Egan.

Desmond Egan is a prolific Irish poet who has published almost 30 collections during his career. 

This poem is from one of his most recent collections, "Epic", which was published in 2015. 

I chose it because it captures something that feels resonant right now.

Our world seems to crowd in around us — either physically in towns or cities, or psychologically, in how we spend so much of our time now lost in the overwhelming noise of the online world. 

It is, I think, for most of us, an increasingly rare opportunity to escape that noise, to find the silence that the poet found beside this little stream.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 49 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today’s poem is "Entirely", by Louis MacNeice.

Louis MacNeice was a British-Irish poet who was born in Belfast in the early 1900s, was educated from the age of 10 in England, attended Oxford Univeristy and died in London in the 1960s at the age of 55. 

In his life he is said to have felt always as an outsider — he was an Irishman in England, but never felt at home back in Ireland either. The general political upheaval, both in Ireland — which went through rebellion, independence and partition into the Republic and Northern Ireland in his lifetime — and globally, with two World Wars, the rise of Nazism and Communism, seemed to cause in MacNeice a great doubt and skepticism. 

A little of that feeling is captured in this poem, "Entirely", with its subtle encouragement for us to step forward even though we can never really be sure of ourselves, of where we are, or where we're going.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 48 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today’s poem is "Mirrors", by IN-Q.

In-Q is the stage name of Adam Schmalholz, an American spoken word performer, songwriter and poet. 

He has delivered powerful talks from the TED stage and is a co-creator of Da Poetry Lounge, one of the world’s largest open mic poetry events held weekly at the Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles. As a songwriter he has written hit songs for the likes of Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus. 

There’s no way I will do full justice to this piece of work, so please go to YouTube to hear In-Q himself perform it.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 47 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today’s poem is "Shadow and Light Source Both" by Rumi.

Jalal ad-Din Muhummad Rumi, commonly known in English simply as Rumi, was a 13th century teacher, philosopher, mystic, Islamic scholar, and poet. 

At such a remove of time, language and place — how much resemblance, really, does modern day America or Australia or Ireland bear to Arabic Asia in the 1200s? — it can be hard to get to the heart of the real Rumi, or his work, such as the Maznavi, a six-volume mystical poem that spans somewhere close to 30,000 lines of poetry. 

Nevertheless, several recent translations — and, as in the popular work of the poet Coleman Barks, re-interpretations of existing English translations — added to the suitability of Rumi’s lines and couplets for the social media generation, has found new audiences for his work in the 21st century. 

This poem "Shadow and Light Source Both" is a poem about the shadows we carry with us, and what they might teach us about ourselves.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 46 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Why Pray" by Matthew McConaughey.

Matthew McConaughey is an actor, star of blockbuster movies such as Magic Mike, Interstellar and Dallas Buyers Club, for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2014.

This poem, "Why Pray?", is an entry in Greenlights, his widely acclaimed and bestselling autobiography, or memoir, or waking dream, or — as McConaughey himself describes it — his "love letter to life", which was published in 2020.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 45 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem, "The West Coast of Clare" by Andy Irvine, is actually a song.

It’s the second song lyric to feature on this podcast—you can find "The Best Day of My Life" by Tom Odell and Laurie Blundell in Episode 30 here, or by searching or scrolling in your podcast player. It’s also the second time that the west coast of county Clare, on Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard, features in Poems to Live Well By. You can find "Postscript" by Seamus Heaney in Episode 14.

“The West Coast of Clare” was included on the debut album of the legendary Irish folk band Planxty released almost exactly 50 years ago, in the early months of 1973. It has been covered by various artists, including Ed Sheeran, Dervish and David Gray.

The line between poetry and song is a wispy one, and while I would encourage you whole-heartedly to listen to the full version of "The West Coast of Clare" live here, or the original track on Spotify here, with Irvine’s gorgeous voice and the lilting, haunting whistle and strings of his band, I believe it stands alone as a poem in its own right.

Perhaps fittingly for today, Valentine’s Day, “The West Coast of Clare” encapsulates the depth of a love, and the grief of its aftermath.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 44 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Mirror in February", by Thomas Kinsella.

You can read the poem here.

Thomas Kinsella was an Irish poet, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 93.

Although relatively little known outside Ireland, he has been compared favourably to his Nobel-winning Irish countryman Seamus Heaney. (One reviewer in the LA Times in 2006 expressed the view that Heaney’s later work had gone stale whereas Kinsella "constantly surprises".) 

This poem was one of his early poems, written in 1962 when he was 33 (“the age of Christ”). It was on the Irish school curriculum for many years. However, it’s not a simple or an easy poem. Every line invites us to stop, and pay close attention, and maybe stopping—even for a moment—and paying close attention—even for a moment, is something that will enhance every ordinary day of our lives.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 43 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Woodland Burial", by Pam Ayres

You can read the poem here.

Pam Ayres is an English broadcaster, comedian and poet who has become a firm favourite of legions of listeners to her many shows and appearances on BBC radio. 

She taps into a shared desire for humour, for our need to go through serious things but to bring to them whatever lightness we can muster.

This poem “Woodland Burial” is a poem about life and the afterlife, not a fluffy heaven inhabited by our souls, but a transformation of our spirit and our matter from one living thing into another.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 42 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Praise of a Man", by Norman MacCaig

You can read the poem here.

Norman MacCaig was a Scottish poet whose life spanned most of the 20th century. He spent all his life in Scotland, first working as a primary school teacher before finishing his career in academia, teaching creative writing at the University of Edinburgh.

This poem, “In Praise of a Man”, is a eulogy to a dead friend. It’s much more than that too. It paints a picture of what a man can be, maybe what a man should be. In all the gender politics of the 21st century, the male role in society, in business, in the family has been reshaped and questioned. 

At heart, what should a man be? What should a man do? This poem, reflecting on the life of a man who has passed away, goes some way to answering those questions.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com