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Adventures In Poetry

First broadcast from 19981025 to 20091213.

Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems.

57 episodes

Series	Episode	Title	First Broadcast	Repeated	Description
	01	The Tyger	19981025		Duncan Wu presents William Blake's `The Tyger'. With Kathleen Raine, Peter Ackroyd and Michael Horovitz
01	01	Sonnet 43 From The Portuguese	19990404	19990410	`Sonnet 43 from the Portuguese' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Peggy Reynolds assesses the ways in which the nation's favourite love poem has echoed through the years.
01	02	At Grass	19990411	19990424	by Philip Larkin. Stephen Regan introduces an exploration of the themes and impact of Larkin's lyrical evocation of retired racehorses and a vanished England.
01	03	Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer	19990418	19990501	Richard Wilson explores Shakespeare's famous and much-loved Sonnet No 18, `Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'.
02	01	If	20011007	20011020	by Rudyard Kipling. She considers the mixed reactions to the poem voted the nation's favourite.
02	02	No Coward Soul	20011014	20011027	by Emily Bronte
02	03	Musee Des Beaux Arts	20011021	20011103
02	03	Musee Des Beaux Arts	20011028	20011103
02	04	Ode On A Grecian Urn	20011104	20011110	4: `Ode on a Grecian Urn' by John Keats
03	01	On His Blindness	20021117	20021123	1: On his Blindness, by John Milton
03	02	Dover Beach	20021124	20021130	2: Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold
03	03	The Farmer's Bride	20021201	20021207	3: The Farmer's Bride, by Charlotte Mew
03	04	Snow	20021208	20021214	by Louis Macneice
04	01	Psalm 23	20030706	20030712	Composed over 2,000 years ago, Psalm 23's imagery and significance remain as vivid as ever.
04	02	Waiting For The Barbarians	20030713	20030719	"By Cp Cavafy Peggy Reynolds presents another series of the poetry programme that gives listeners an entertaining and often unexpected insight into some of the best-known and best-loved poems in the language. Each of the four poems featured is firmly lodged in our affections, and the programmes take listeners on a journey of exploration through the language, historical background and contemporary resonances of the piece, calling on literary experts, biographers, historians, musicians and poetry readers from all walks of life to bring their own interpretation and insights to the poem. Waiting For The Barbarians has a title that is regularly quoted in many contexts, and is one of the most frequently anthologised of all poems in translation. It is an ironic masterpiece in the form of a dialogue between two citizens of a mythical city, and its contemporary resonance is both fascinating and unavoidable. [Rpt of Sun 4.30pm] " / By Cp Cavafy Peggy Reynolds presents another series of the poetry programme that gives listeners an entertaining and often unexpected insight into some of the best-known and best-loved poems in the language. Each of the four poems featured is firmly lodged in our affections, and the programmes take listeners on a journey of exploration through the language, historical background and contemporary resonances of the piece, calling on literary experts, biographers, historians, musicians and poetry readers from all walks of life to bring their own interpretation and insights to the poem. Waiting For The Barbarians has a title that is regularly quoted in many contexts, and is one of the most frequently anthologised of all poems in translation. It is an ironic masterpiece in the form of a dialogue between two citizens of a mythical city, and its contemporary resonance is both fascinating and unavoidable.
04	03	Naming Of Parts	20030720	20030726	By Henry Reed Peggy Reynolds explores the experience of poet and dramatist Henry Reed that led him to fuse the natural world with military terminology, in a poem that has become one of the most anthologised of the Second World War and continues to resonate though succeeding generations.
04	04 LAST	Jabberwocky	20030727	20030802	By Lewis Carroll. Peggy Reynolds goes out among the slithy toves, braves the fruminous bandersnatch and generally has a brillig time as she goes in search of Lewis Carroll's mythical creature, the Jabberwock.
05	01	Casabianca. By Felicia Hemans	20040711	20040717	A poem probably best known for its first line, 'The boy stood on the burning deck...'. It was written about a true episode during the Battle of the Nile in the Napoleonic wars by a poet who in her time, rivaled Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron in popularity. Peggy Reynolds talks to critics, a world-famous yachtsman, a naval historian and trainee officers about its impact.
05	02	The Windhover By Gerard Manley Hopkins	20040718	20040724, RptofSun4.30pm	Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) was a Jesuit priest and a teacher of Latin and Greek. He burned much of his work because he saw it as a distraction from his religious duties, and the few poems he left were not even published until almost thirty years after his death. Yet Hopkins is now seen as a revolutionary figure in Victorian literature, an inspiration to 20th Century poets such as W.H.Auden and Dylan Thomas. 'The Windhover', a sonnet dedicated 'To Christ Our Lord', is one of Hopkins' best-loved poems. It takes the image of a kestrel in flight and, in brilliantly-compressed language, works it into a profound meditation on CHRISTIANity. Peggy Reynolds, as always in this series, explores the background to the poem to discover how it came to be written and why it remains so vividly alive today. 2/5 The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
05	03	I, Too, Sing America, By Langston Hughes	20040725	20040731	As a young black man in Harlem during the 1920s, Langston Hughes refused to apologise for his colour and was determined instead to celebrate it. His poetic answer to Walt Whitman's I Hear America Singing is a bold assertion made half a century before it became a slogan that black is beautiful. Peggy Reynolds, with the help of Hughes devotees including the novelist Candace Allen, sets out to understand what produced that shout of joyful defiance.
05	04	Tam Lin	20040801	20040807, RptofSun4.30pm	This ancient Scottish ballad fairies, casual sex, shape-shifting, human sacrifice and a heroine with an attitude, not to mention its own website. Peggy Reynolds talks to folk singers, ballad-experts and Ian McShane (who was Tam Lin) to discover why this dramatic tale has haunted imaginations since the middle ages. A series of programmes that explore how poetry makes its mark on our lives. 4/5. Tam Lin This ancient Scottish ballad has fairies, casual sex, shape-shifting, human sacrifice and a heroine with an attitude, not to mention its own website. Peggy Reynolds talks to folk-singers, ballad-experts and actor Ian McShane (who was Tam Lin) to discover why this dramatic tale has haunted imaginations since the Middle Ages.
05	05 LAST	He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven	20040808	20040814	Peggy Reynolds adventures into WB Yeats's poem He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, best known for its last line, "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." It is a journey of myth and magic, spirituality and romantic love.
06	01	Ozymandias, By Percy Bysshe Shelley.	20051120	20051126	Contributors include Richard Holmes and Rageh Omar.
06	02	The Road Not Taken	20051127	20051203	By Robert Frost. Frost's poem was recently and overwhelmingly voted America's favourite - where it's held up as an example of rugged individualism, a sort of poetic My Way. Contributors include Jay Parini, Sean Street, Matt Harvey and Janet Street-Porter. Presented by Peggy Reynolds
06	03	The Thought Fox	20051204	20051210	By Ted Hughes. Why does the 'Sharp Hot Stink of Fox' stick to your clothes? Fellow Yorkshireman and poet Simon Armitage needs a shower after reading this seminal poem about creativity. He and people who've known and admired Hughes consider its power.
06	04	Donal Og	20051211	20051217	Translated by Lady Augusta Gregory of Goole Park, Donal Og is a ballad that speaks of love and loss. W B Yeats and Lady Gregory gathered Kiltartan stories from the Irish speakers of Galway and Aran.
06	05	Morning Has Broken	20051218		By Eleanor Farjeon. With words best known as a popular song, it features at weddings, christenings and funerals; is sung by schoolchildren everywhere and has been adopted by Madonna as an inspirational start to the day. Peggy Reynolds looks beyond the apparently simple words of Morning Has Broken to find what lies at the heart of its universal appeal.
06	06 LAST	The Oxen	20051225	20051226	By Thomas Hardy. Peggy Reynolds looks at this nostalgic poem describing the traditional nativity scene, with its enduring message of faith and hope. Written by Hardy - himself an agnostic - and first published in The Times on Christmas Eve, 1915, when the events of the First World War were at their most terrible.
07	01	The Lady Of Shalott, By Tennyson	20060903	20060909	Why is this much-loved, much recited, much sung poem still intriguing people - including historians, painters, weavers and American Indie pop singers?
07	02	Timothy Winters, By Charles Causley	20060910	20060916	Causley's best known poem is a perennial favourite on the school curriculum. Peggy visits Launceston in Cornwall - where Causley was born, bred and worked as a schoolteacher - to meet some of his old friends, including one of his former pupils. New York poet Dana Gioia, a Causley scholar and enthusiast, analyses the poem and adds his own memories.
07	03	First Fig, By Edna St Vincent Millay	20060917	20060923	This very short poem has had an extraordinary life. It is brief enough to quote in full, but its hinterland has stretched far and wide from the bohemia of Greenwich Village in New York where it was written nearly 100 years ago.
07	04 LAST	Tonight At Noon, By Adrian Henri	20060924	20060930	Peggy examines the opening poem of the groundbreaking 1967 collection The Mersey Sound, and uncovers a piece of aural pop art, an exercise in reversals, a surrealist work and a love poem.
08	01	First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels	20071014	20071020	By Allen Ginsberg
08	02	To His Coy Mistress	20071021	20071027	By Andrew Marvell. One of the great poems of seduction was written by a 17th-century puritan rumoured to have been homosexual.
08	03	The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strain'd	20071028	20071103	Portia's speech in defence of Antonio in the Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's best known and most frequently quoted. Contributors include Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, Helena Kennedy QC, Lisa Jardine, rabbi Julia Neuberger and actress Janet Suzman
08	04	Matilda	20071104	20071110	Hilaire Belloc's Matilda has been enjoyed by generations of children and parents since its publication in 1907. Contributors include children's writer Michael Morpurgo, playwright and film maker Debbie Isitt, Children's Laureate Michael Rosen and professor of children's literature Kim Reynolds.
08		Morning Has Broken	20071007	20071013	Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of Elizabeth Farjeon's poem Morning Has Broken.
09	01	The Listeners	20081123	20081129	By Walter de la Mare. Published in 1912, the poem has been popular with adults and children alike for its elusiveness. Peggy examines its enduring appeal and finds out why gardeners, spiritualists and teachers are still intrigued and inspired by it.
09	02	Ithaka	20081130	20081206	Peggy talks to people who have been inspired by Ithaka's treatment of the journey of life. By Cp Cavafy. Peggy talks to people who have found inspiration in the poem's treatment of the journey of life, including the poet Ruth Padel, and Prof Edith Hall discusses its Homeric associations. By Cp Cavafy. Peggy talks to people who have found inspiration in the poem's treatment of the journey of life, including the poet Ruth Padel, and Professor Edith Hall discusses its Homeric associations.
09	03	I Am, By John Clare	20081213	20081207	Peggy examines Clare's expression of feelings of dispossession. Peggy examines the poem's expression of feelings of dispossession engendered by the land grab of the agricultural enclosures of the early-19th century, and Clare's residency in a lunatic asylum at the time of writing it. Peggy examines the poem's expression of feelings of dispossession engendered by the land grab of the agricultural enclosures of the early-19th century, and Clare's residency in a lunatic asylum at the time of writing it.
09	04 LAST	Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love	20081214	20081220	Peggy hears from those to whom the exuberant lyrics of Cole Porter's song speak volumes, including agony aunt Bel Mooney and pianist Simon Townley
10	01	Adlestrop	20091108	20091114	Written in 1915 about a two-minute stop at a railway station in the Cotswolds, this poem has long been loved for its evocation of high summer, rural England and the intimation of changes to come. Peggy Reynolds examines the enduring appeal of Edward Thomas' evocative poem.
10	02	To My Dear And Loving Husband	20091115	20091121	Anne Bradstreet's poem has been anthologised in nearly every collection of love poetry published. How did a near-invalid woman, who had to endure not only the privations of migrating to the New World but also the strict Puritan ethic established there, manage to write something so warm and personal that it still speaks to us today? The story behind one of the most tender and enduring of love poems.
10	03	Mending Wall	20091122	20091128	Robert Frost's Mending Wall gave us the epigram 'good fences make good neighbours'. They don't, of course, but we still need our walls and hedges. Peggy meets sheep farmers, wall artists and poetry enthusiasts as she explores the stories behind the poem. Robert Frost's Mending Wall gave us the epigram 'good fences make good neighbours'.
10	04	An Arundel Tomb	20091129	20091205	Philip Larkin was disappointed by his 'Tomb poem': one of the pivotal details was wrong and another, he discovered, had been invented by a Victorian restorer 500 years later. 'Muddle to the end,' he complained, and yet it is now one of his best-loved and most quoted poems. Peggy Reynolds investigates the layers of mystery surrounding Larkin's much-loved poem.
10	05	My Last Duchess	20091206	20091212	The height of English Gothic, a poem in which an aristocrat tacitly admits to having done away with his young wife - a Medici no less. Peggy Reynolds teases out the many layers of Robert Browning's chilling but groundbreaking poem. Peggy Reynolds teases out the many layers of Robert Browning's chilling poem.
10	06 LAST	On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer	20091213	20091219	'Much have I travelled in the realms of gold...' Keats' sonnet - his first great poem - begins. Keats couldn't read Greek and the poem records him touching the ancient world through translation and his Already fecund imagination. Peggy explores the stories behind its creation and its enduring appeal.
	01	The Charge Of The Light Brigade	20001015	20001028	by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson's powerful evocation of one of history's most tragic military mistakes is discussed by historian Richard Holmes, war correspondent John Simpson and actor David Hemmings, among others.
	02	Daffodils	20001022	20001104	by William Wordsworth. The significances of the poem are discussed by an academic, a Lake District writer, the poet's most recent biographer, the secretary of the Daffodil Society, a rap artist, a teacher, her pupils and a poet.
	02	How Do I Love Thee...?	19981101		Peggy Reynolds counts the ways in which the nation's favourite love poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's `Sonnet 43 from the Portuguese', has echoed through the years.
	03	Remember	20001105	20001111	3: `Remember', by Christina Rossetti. The poem is discussed with her biographer, a vicar, other writers and an expert in the psychology of grief. by John Donne. The poem is discussed by poets, schoolboys and the caretaker of a garden.
	03 LAST	Leda And The Swan By W B Yeats	19981108		The resonances of Yeats's great sonnet are explored by poets, artists and contemporary readers.
	04	The Sunne Rising	20001105	20001118	3: `Remember', by Christina Rossetti. The poem is discussed with her biographer, a vicar, other writers and an expert in the psychology of grief. by John Donne. The poem is discussed by poets, schoolboys and the caretaker of a garden.
	04	The Sunne Rising	20001112	20001125	5: `Morning Song', by Sylvia Plath. She discusses the poem with poets, mothers, midwives and Plath's biographer.
	05	Morning Song	20001112	20001125	5: `Morning Song', by Sylvia Plath. She discusses the poem with poets, mothers, midwives and Plath's biographer.
	05	Morning Song	20001119	20001202
	06	The Owl And The Pussycat	20001126	20001209	6: `The Owl and the Pussycat' by Edward Lear. She explores Lear's nonsense world with the help of academics, writers, children and other fans.