Modern-ish Poets: Series 2

In the first episode of their second series of Modern-ish Poets, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford take on Gerard Manley Hopkins: Victorian literature’s only anti-modern proto-modernist queer-ecologist Jesuit priest.To listen to this series ad free and to series one of Modern-ish Poets, and all our other Close Readings series in full, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.Further reading on Hopkins in the LRB:Helen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerhopkinspodPatricia Beer: https://lrb.me/beerhopkinspodJohn Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyhopkinspodThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2020.

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Robert Frost, the great American poet of fences and dark woods. They discuss Frost’s difficult early life as an occasional poultry farmer and teacher, his arrival in England in 1912 amid the flowering of Georgian poetry, and his emergence as the first 20th-century professional poet, whose version of the American wilderness myth, full of mischief and foreboding, took him to packed concert halls and a presidential inauguration.To listen to this series ad free and to series one of Modern-ish Poets, and all our other Close Readings series in full, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in August 2020.Further reading on Frost in the LRB:Leo Marx: https://lrb.me/marxfrostpodHelen Vendler: https://lrb.me/vendlerfrostpodPeter Howarth: https://lrb.me/howarthfrostpodMatthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevisfrostpod

In the third episode of their second series of Modern-ish Poets, Seamus Perry and Mark Ford turn to the life and work of Adrienne Rich, in whose poems the personal becomes not only political, but epic.To listen to this series ad free and to series one of Modern-ish Poets, and all our other Close Readings series in full, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in September 2020.Further reading on Rich in the LRB:Jacqueline Rose: https://lrb.me/roserichpodStephanie Burt: https://lrb.me/burtrichpod

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of Louis MacNeice, the Irish poet of psychic divisions and authoritative fretfulness, in the fourth episode of series two of Modern-ish Poets.To listen to this series ad free and to series one of Modern-ish Poets, and all our other Close Readings series in full, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in November 2020.Further reading on MacNiece in the LRB:Ian Hamilton: https://lrb.me/hamiltonmacneicepodJohn Kerrigan: https://lrb.me/kerriganmacneicepodMarilyn Butler: https://lrb.me/butlermacneicepodNick Laird: https://lrb.me/lairdmacneicepod

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the life and work of the Saint Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the island poet and playwright surrounded by an oceanic consciousness, whose writing recognises at once the terrible gulfs between peoples and our common predicament.To listen to this series ad free and to series one of Modern-ish Poets, and all our other Close Readings series in full, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021.Further reading on and by Walcott in the LRB:'Militia' by Derek Walcott: https://lrb.me/walcottmilitiapodIan Sansom: https://lrb.me/sansomwalcottpodNicholas Everett: https://lrb.me/everettwalcottpodStephen Brook: https://lrb.me/brookwalcottpodBlake Morrison: https://lrb.me/morrisonwalcottpod

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford continue their series with a look at the life and work of W.B. Yeats, from his early quest for a mythological Irish culture, to his shift towards the Modernist experiment, and preoccupation with the ‘murderousness of the world’.To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.Read more in the LRB:Seamus Deane: https://lrb.me/deaneyeatspodMichael Wood: https://lrb.me/woodyeatspodColm Tóibín: https://lrb.me/toibinyeatspodThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in December 2021.

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford look at the life and work of Charlotte Mew, who brought the Victorian art of dramatic monologue into the 20th century, and whose difficult experiences are often refracted through her damaged and marginalised characters.To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading on Mew in the LRB:Matthew Bevis: https://lrb.me/bevismewpodPenelope Fitzgerald: https://lrb.me/fitzgeraldmewpodSusannah Clapp: https://lrb.me/clappmewpodSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.This episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in March 2021.

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the lives and works of Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, close friends and leading lights of the New York School, who sought to create an anti-academic, hedonistic poetry, freeing themselves from the puritan American tradition.To listen to series one of Modern-ish Poets and all our other Close Readings series, sign up here:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsSeries one of Modern-ish Poets looks at Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Thomas Hardy, Stevie Smith, A. E. Housman, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Robert Lowell.Further reading on O'Hara and Ashbery in the LRB:C.K. Stead: https://lrb.me/steadashberypodJohn Bayley: https://lrb.me/bayleyashberypodStephanie Burt: https://lrb.me/burtashberypodJohn Kerrigan: https://lrb.me/kerriganashberypodThis episode was first published on the LRB Podcast in June 2022.