The Poetaster

Tim is frantically doing his homework ahead of Easter celebrations, and is keen to bounce some ideas around about John Donne's poem "Crucifying". Metaphysical poets need a fair bit of unpacking but does this limit the emotional connection we feel with the poetry itself?

Andy is solo for this quick trot through Augustan poetry and the work of its leading writer, Alexander Pope. Balance, harmony, wit, and style are hallmarks of Pope's idea of good poetry, and we have a look at how these come through in the "Essay on Criticism" and "On a Certain Lady at Court".

Andy and Tim discuss Vincent O'Sullivan's response to the famous painting "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer. What happened before this woman started pouring the milk; what will happen after; and when did ordinary moments of everyday life become the subject of poetry?

Denis Glover was at the heart of the New Zealand poetry scene in the mid-twentieth century, and in this episode Andrew and Tim discuss one of the poems in Glover's "Sings Harry" sequence, featuring a farmer musing about his place in the world as he works the land.

Join Tim and Andrew as they dive into the English undergrowth in the company of the Romantic period's version of David Attenborough, Northamptonshire Peasant Poet John Clare.

How do we hope we'll be remembered after we're dead? Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy imagines the sorts of requests the living might receive from the dead, poking a bit of fun at the expectations, pretensions and delusions of dead men in particular.

What on earth is a turnip snedder? Tim and Andrew debate this and other questions in their discussion of this poem from Nobel Prize-winning poet, Seamus Heaney.

Tim continues to feel belligerent, and gets a bit biblical with Wilfred Owen's "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young". Some people interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac as one of redemption and grace. But not Owen . . .