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

This is Episode 41 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Go to the Limits of Your Longing", by Rainer Maria Rilke.

You can read the poem here.

Rainer Maria Rilke was a poet who came from the old Austro-Hungarian empire which existed until the end of World War I. He was a near contemporary of Friedrich Nietzsche, both men wrote in German, and it’s said that they even, 15 or 20 years apart, fell in love with the same woman (the psychoanalyst Lou Salomé). 

Whereas the philosophy of Nietzsche can be dense and difficult to read, and is sometimes seen as depressing or nihilistic, and the poetry of Rilke is easy to read and often hopeful or spiritually uplifting, there are many parallels in their work too. For one thing, both reject easy summaries of the way life was or could be. Both, in their own way, questioned what life was for.

Rilke’s poems can often be adopted as affirmations or prayers, and often include short lines that seem to go straight to the heart of things. That can be said about today’s poem, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”, a prayer given to us directly by God to encourage us to go out and live, fully, deeply, embracing the full complexity of our being.

Music Credit:

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

This is Episode 40 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Up", by Margaret Atwood.

You can read the poem here.

Margaret Atwood is a legendary and prolific novelist, essayist, poet and activist from Canada. She has published more than 50 books, including the 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, set in a dystopian future and which has been made into a hugely successful TV series in recent years.

This poem, “Up”, is a very personal account of (in my reading) the experience of anxiety and depression.

It asks — and asks us to ask ourselves — pertinent questions about our present, our past and our future.

As always on this podcast, take this introduction as a jumping-off point. If this poem says something different to you than it says to me, your response is equally valid. 

A poem, as John Cleese says, is to be experienced, not explained. So invite it in, and allow it to speak.

Music Credit:

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

This is Episode 39 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Snow", by Vladimir Holan, translated from the Czech by Ian and Jarmila Milner.

You can read the poem here.

Vladimir Holan was a Czech poet who lived and died in the country during the upheaval, war, torment and genocide of the 20th century.

Czechoslovakia was caught between the fascism of Nazi Germany and the communism of Soviet Russia, and was a member of the so-called Eastern Bloc communist states of eastern Europe from after World War II until 1989.

As such, it’s maybe understandable that Holan’s poetry is described as having a dark and bleak view of the world. 

Still, there is some degree of hope and liberation in this poem, "Snow". 

At one level, yes, it tells us that nothing matters. But at another level, does it also say that because none of the stuff deemed important matters, we might be able to stop worrying about it? 

Let you decide. As always on this podcast, whatever this poem says to you is valid. Invite it in, and allow it to speak.

Music Credit:

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

This is Episode 38 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today's poem is "The Bell and the Blackbird", by David Whyte

You can read the poem here. You are also invited to listen to the author recite the poem aloud, in his own unique and powerful way, here.

David Whyte is an English poet whose work has drawn a phenomenal following in recent years. His work seems to tap into something vital in the world right now, something that all of us are hungry for, some connection with the land beneath us and the air around us, some connection too with all the other searching souls around the world with whom we share a path, even if they are at some other stage of the journey.

“The Bell and the Blackbird” is a short and beautiful poem that encourages us to contemplate the impossible choice all of us face: the choice between the built world of humanity and society and accomplishment, and the other world, of mystery and spirit and eternity.

This is the second poem by David Whyte in this podcast. You can search in your podcast player for Episode 7, "Sometimes". And as always with David Whyte poetry, I encourage you to seek out the poet reading and discussing his own work. His unique delivery brings the words alive in an extraordinarily powerful way.

Music Credit:

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

This is Episode 37 of Poems to Live Well By.

Today’s poem is "Leaving the Empty Room", by Stephen Dunn

You can read the poem here.

Stephen Dunn was an American poet, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, who died in 2021 at the age of 82. 

His subject matter was the normal everyday triumphs and tragedies, disappointments and despairs, and his style was described as easygoing and conversational, which meant you might have to look closely to see the seriousness below. 

This poem is a study (I think) of loneliness, of emptiness, and of the impulse and thoughtlessness often baked into life’s big decisions. 

I don’t know the context of the poem, but it was included in a 2011 edition of the Paris Review, and I do know that Dunn was married to his first wife Lois for almost 40 years before divorcing in 2001. Maybe that’s relevant here, maybe it's not. 

I suspect that this sensation—a feeling of emptiness that seems to fill up when you leave—is something many of us have experienced in 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 36 of Poems to Live Well By.

As with every poem on this podcast, the introductions here are only introductions. You are encouraged to listen to the poem, and to read it, and to allow it to speak to you however it does.

Perhaps fitting for today, February 1st, St Brigid’s Day, we have a female poet with both a strong Irish background and strong feminist philosophies. 

British Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019, Carol Ann Duffy has published more than 30 collections of poetry, including a number of books of children’s poetry. Raised in an Irish Catholic family in Glasgow, Scotland, she moved away from religion in her teens. 

This poem, “Prayer”, is a testimony of the power of prayer. It tells us that prayer exists as something that’s bigger and goes much further than the normal boundaries of organised religion. A note on the text: there is a word in here that might need a definition. "Minim" is a term from music which means something like a tiny beat, a half-note. Also, the last line is a list of place names, which will be well known to anyone who has happened late at night to the Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio.

You can read the poem here.

Music Credit:

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

Perhaps best known for “Stepping Stones”, his book-length collection of interviews with his friend Seamus Heaney, Dennis O’Driscoll was a respected poet in his own right, publishing nine collections before his death at the age of 58 at Christmas 2012 (just a few months before Heaney also passed away). 

O’Driscoll was a so-called “office poets”, one of those poets who worked their whole lives in non-poetic day jobs, a category which includes Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. (Incidentally, you can find poems by Stevens in Episode 21 and Williams on Episode 29 of this podcast.) 

This poem, “You”, is about you. 

It’s about all of us. 

It’s about the unique and strange challenge of living.

You can read the poem here.

Music Credit:

Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License