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  Poets on Poetry - The most...

  Matthew Arnold, Sarojini Naidu,...

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  Who has not tried to write a poem?  The poetic form of words seems to be rather easy.  In its basic form, which we learn as children, the rhyming couplet is, in a child’s written and spoken words, pure joy - success!  In the hands of a Shakespeare it is magnificent with a reach and understanding that the rest of us enjoy but are far from even attempting.    
   
  As we listen to various poetic forms, schools and movements we can only react with wonder at how these innocent words are assembled to create symphonies of ideas, wonder and revelation.  The emotions they seek to invoke can be anything from happiness to sadness, from love to revulsion. 
   
  Arnold, Stevens, Keats, Akhmatova, Browning, Herrick, Hood, Killigrew are but a few of the roll-call of wordsmiths who with mere words create ravenous beauty that reveals tender lines and sensitive verse on how and why they are who they are. 
   
  01 - Poets on Poetry - An Introduction 
  02 - When I Write Poems by Anna Akhmatova 
  03 - Of My Poems by Thomas MacDonagh 
  04 - An Apology For Her Poetry by Duchess of Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish 
  05 - Sonnet 76 - Why is My Verse So Barren of New Pride by William Shakespeare 
  06 - The Austerity of Poetry by Matthew Arnold 
  07 - Of Modern Poetry by Wallace Stevens 
  08 - Poetry by Claude McKay 
  09 - The Poetry of Keats by George Meredith 
  10 - Future Poetry by Alice Meynell 
  11 - Sonnet 17 - Who Will Believe My Verse in Time to Come by William Shakespeare 
  12 - Poetic Eggs by Ezra Pound 
  13 - Poem by William Carlos Williams 
  14 - On the Grasshopper and Cricket by John Keats 
  15 - Ode on the Poetical Character by William Collins 
  16 - Introduction and Conclusion of a Long Poem by Alan Seeger 
  17 - A True Account of the Birth and Conception of a Late Famous Poem by Charles Sackville, Earl Of Dorset 
  18 - The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain by Wallace Stevens 
  19 - The Poet and the Poem by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
  20 - Of English Verse by Edmund Waller 
  21 - Love, The Soul of Poetry by Anne Killigrew 
  22 - Why, If All Poets Crown Their Love with Verse by Emily Hickey 
  23 - Verse Making Was the Least of My Virtues by Robert Browning 
  24 - The Poet's Love-Song by Sarojini Naidu 
  25 - A Letter to a Brother of the Pen in Tribulation by Aphra Behn 
  26 - Not Every Day Fit for Verse by Robert Herrick 
  27 - On the Poetic Muse by George Moses Horton 
  28 - Sonnet - Written in Keats by Thomas Hood 
  29 - Sonnet 86 -Was It the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse by William Shakespeare 
  30 - Song in Imitation of Shakespeare by James Beattie 
  31 - The High-toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens 
  32 - Poetry is a Destructive Force by Wallace Stevens 
  33 - To My Most Dearly Loved Friend Henry Reynolds Esquire of Poets and Poesie by Michael Drayton 
  34 - His Poetry His Pillar by Robert Herrick 
  35 - To Live Merrily and to Trust to Good Verses by Robert Herrick 
  36 - Poem for the End by Ivor Gurney

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  Messiah The - A Sacred Ecologue...

  Alexander Pope

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  Alexander Pope was born on May 21st, 1688 in London into a Catholic family.   
  His education was affected by the recent Test Acts, upholding the status of the Church of England and banning Catholics from teaching.  In effect this meant his formal education was over by the age of 12 and Pope was to now immerse himself in classical literature and languages and to, in effect, educate himself.    
  From this age too he also suffered from numerous health problems including a type of tuberculosis (Pott’s disease) which resulted in a stunted, deformed body.  Only to grow to a height of 4’ 6”, with a severe hunchback and complicated further by respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain all of which served to further isolate him, initially, from society.  
  However his talent was evident to all. Best known for his satirical verse, his translations of Homer and the use of the heroic couplet, he is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare.  
  With the publication of Pastorals in 1709 followed by An Essay on Criticism (1711) and his most famous work The Rape of the Lock (1712; revised and enlarged in 1714) Pope became not only famous but wealthy.  
  His translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey further enhanced both reputation and purse.  His engagement to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare met with a mixed reception.  Pope attempted to "regularise" Shakespeare's metre and rewrote some of his verse and cut 1500 lines, that Pope considered to be beneath the Bard’s standard, to mere footnotes.  
  Alexander Pope died on May 30th, 1744 at his villa at Twickenham (where he created his famous grotto and gardens) and was buried in the nave of the nearby Church of England Church of St Mary the Virgin.   
  Over the years and centuries since his death Pope’s work has been in and out of favour but with this distance he is now truly recognised as one of England’s greatest poets.

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  WB Yeats: Selected Poems

  W. B. Yeats

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  W.B. Yeats: Selected Poems offers some of the most loved and profound pieces from the Irish literary giant. This audiobook edition is beautifully brought to life by Adrian Kelly.Known for his romantic and lyrical style of poetry, Yeats's work was often inspired by Irish myths, spiritualism, love, longing and loss. His later work became more modernist in style, challenging poetic conventions and shifting to a political focus. In this definitive collection, you will find some of Yeats's most noteworthy poems, written from the late nineteenth century right up until his death in 1939.

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  The Motive and the Cue - (West...

  Jack Thorne

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  1964: Richard Burton, the firebrand Welsh actor, newly married to movie star Elizabeth Taylor, is to play the title role in an experimental new production of Hamlet under the exacting direction of John Gielgud.
  But as rehearsals progress, the collaboration between actor and director soon threatens to unravel. One of them is the most famous movie star in the world; the other, a patrician from an earlier age of theatre. The stage is set for two titans to collide.
  Jack Thorne's The Motive and the Cue is a fierce, funny play which offers a glimpse into the politics of a rehearsal room and the relationship between art and celebrity. This edition was published alongside the West End transfer in 2023, following its world premiere at the National Theatre, London, earlier that year. Originally commissioned and co-produced by Neal Street Productions, it was directed by Sam Mendes, and starred Johnny Flynn as Burton, Mark Gatiss as Gielgud and Tuppence Middleton as Taylor. It was named Best Play at the 2023 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, and Best New Play at the 2024 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.

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  Moments We Stand The: Silence...

  Ashlee Boyson

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  My name is Ashlee. I am a victim of murder. Through a series of events and by two shots of a gun, I was made a widow at the age of 28, with my youngest child just six weeks old. I am a victim of infidelity. I have felt unlovable. I have felt rejected. I have had days in my life when I wasn’t sure if I would ever take a breath again, let alone be able to raise my five children by myself. I have lived in fear. I have felt much heartache. I have felt truly broken to my core. I have carried some heavy burdens...not only of my own, but burdens put upon my shoulders by the death of my husband. I have felt alone. I have felt humiliated. I have been humbled to my knees. I have searched my soul to find my worth in this world, and in the life that was left for me. My world has been totally shattered. I have faced realities I never knew were possible, and found strength within myself to keep up the fight and live every day as if it was on purpose. I have been carried by Angels...both earthly beings and those unseen. I have found that being a “victim” doesn’t mean we have an excuse to stop living. Being a victim means finding a reason for seeking a higher road. I have picked up the pieces left and carried on. I am a mother. We are survivors. In one way or another, we are all victims. There are times in our lives when we are forced to question who we are at our core. This is my story...the defining moments that have truly brought me to my knees, the times when I’ve questioned to my core my very existence, and the experiences I’ve had that have shown me who I really am and who my Heavenly Father still needs me to become. The night of my husband’s death was my darkest hour, but also the very moment when I saw firsthand that my Heavenly Father sent Angels on errands for me. He carried me. It was the hour when all my fears and all the pain of this world collided together and He was there...putting back together all the pieces, one step at a time.

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  Bellringers

  Daisy Hall

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  'What do you want me to say? That the world's ending? Would that be helpful?'
  The storms are getting worse, with rains so hard that fish are falling from the sky. But the age-old belief prevails: that the pealing of bells can dissipate the thunder and lightning.
  It's a perilous task – one that now falls to two young friends, Clement and Aspinall. And as the weather worsens, they begin to question whether they'll make it through the night. With their faith in tradition faltering, they find the only thing they still believe in is each other…
  Daisy Hall's play Bellringers is a comic and deeply moving drama about being young at the end of the world. It was first performed at the Roundabout during the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, before transferring to Hampstead Theatre, London, co-produced by Atticist, Ellie Keel Productions and Hampstead Theatre, and directed by Jessica Lazar.
  Bellringers was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Playwriting 2023.

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