"P" is for poetry

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Master poetry playlist

Each of these links will redirect you to the relevant playlist on my non-monetized Youtube channel (new video every other day)

By actors

Tom Hiddleston (Words and Music, Ximalaya FM, Coriolanus watchalong with Josie Rourke, Tom and the cast, interviews, Betrayal reunion)

Bruce Alexander, Sam Alexander, Nonso Anozie, Richard Armitage, Dame Eileen Atkins, Annette Badland, Kathy Bates, Xander Berkeley, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Richard Burton, Simon Callow, Robert Carlyle, Helena Bonham Carter, Kim Cattrall, Glenn Close, Sir William "Billy" Connolly, Ben Crystal, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ossie Davis, Dame Judi Dench, Vincent D'Onofrio, Brian Dennehy, James Earl Jones, Beatie Edney, Mark Ebulue, Ralph Fiennes, Kate Fleetwood, Jodie Foster, Polly Frame, Morgan Freeman, Stephen Fry, Michael Gaston, Sir John Gielgud, Aidan Gillen, Rupert Graves, Eva Green, Sir Alec Guinness, David Harewood, Tom Hollander, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Alex Jennings, Toby Jones, Jude Law, Robert Sean Leonard, Damian Lewis, John Lithgow, Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Helen Mirren, Richard Mitchley, Alfred Molina, Sir Roger Moore, Sam Neill, Al Pacino, Ron Perlman, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Sir Jonathan Pryce, Alan Rickman, Sir Simon Russell Beale, Susan Sarandon, Andrew Scott, Fiona Shaw, Michael Sheen, Gary Sinise, Dan Stevens, Sir Patrick Stewart, Mitchell Brian Stokes, Mark Strong, Natasha Richardson, David Tennant, Kathleen Turner, Eli Wallach, Dominic West and Samuel West.

In this playlist there is 1-1 poem read by Tony Amendola, Sebastian Arcelus, Mackenzie Astin, Gerry Bamman, Alan Bates, Gina Bellman, Cathy Belton, Edward Bennett, Tilly Blackwood, Claire Bloom, Lindy Booth, Peter Bowles, Eleanor Bron, Sir Michael Caine, Peter Capaldi, Sir Sean Connery, Lindsay Crouse, Ruby Dee, Adrian Dunbar, Lindsay Duncan, Noma Dumezweni, Adetomiwa Edun, Rupert Evans, Colin Farrell, Deborah Findlay, Edward Fox, Jonathan Frakes, Hugh Fraser, Jennifer Garner, Jill Gascoine, Annabeth Gish, Iain Glen, Ioan Gruffudd, Julie Harris, Josh Hartnett, John Heffernan, Douglas Henshall, Hozier, Sir John Hurt, Amy Irving, Sir Derek Jacobi, Peter Jacobson, Lennie James, Paterson Joseph, Rory Kinnear, Hugh Laurie, Sir Christopher Lee, Robert Lindsay, Ophelia Lovibond, Helen McCrory, Niamh McGrady, Sepideh Moafi, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Tessa Peake-Jones, Dame Sian Phillips, Wendell Pierce, Rosamund Pike, Diana Quick, Jemma Redgrave, Iwan Rheon, Sebastian Roché, Hugh Ross, William Sadler, Kerry Shale, Imelda Staunton, Rufus Sewell, Jenna Stern, Juliet Stevenson, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Jo Stone-Fewings, Tilda Swinton, Peter O’ Toole, Harry Treadaway, Indira Varma, Dame Harriet Walter, Sam Waterson, Fritz Weaver and Carolyn Wickwire.

By poets

W. H. Auden, William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Byron, Lewis Carroll, John Clare, E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Seamus Heaney, Robert Herrick, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Edward Lear, Robert Lowell, Christopher Marlowe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pablo Neruda, E. A. Poe, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats and other poets.

Short scenes from movies/theatre plays

Coriolanus (Tom Hiddleston), King Lear (Sir Athony Hopkins), Much Ado About Nothing (Emma Thompson & Kenneth Branagh), Hamlet (Andrew Scott), Much Ado About Nothing (Catherine Tate & David Tennant), Macbeth (Sir Patrick Stewart)

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“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe (read by James Earl Jones)

Keep reading

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Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—            Only this and nothing more.”

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Sonnet 32 by William Shakespeare (read by Alex Jennings)

If thou survive my well-contented day, When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

Source: The Sonnets: William Shakespeare - Alex Jennings, 1997

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Poetry: "Vertigo" by Alice Oswald (read by Ruth Wilson) || Climate change poems series

In 2015 actors including James Franco, Ruth Wilson, Gabriel Byrne, Maxine Peake, Jeremy Irons, Kelly Macdonald and Michael Sheen read a series of 20 original poems on the theme of climate change, curated by UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

"Vertigo" by Alice Oswald

May I shuffle forward and tell you the two minute life of rain Starting right now lips open and lidless-cold all-seeing gaze When something not yet anything changes its mind like me And begins to fall In the small hours And the light is still a flying carpet Only a little white between worlds like an eye opening after an operation. No turning back each drop is a snap decision A suicide from the tower-block of heaven. And for the next ten seconds The rain stares at the ground Sees me stirring here As if sculpted in porridge Sees the garden in the green of its mind already drinking And the grass lengthening Stalls … Maybe a thousand feet above me A kind of yellowness or levity Like those tiny alterations that brush the legs of swimmers Lifts the rain a little to the left No more than a flash of free-will Until the clouds close their options and the whole melancholy air surrenders to pure fear and … falls And I who live in the basement one level down from the world with my eyes to the insects with my ears to the roots listening I feel them in my bones these dead straight lines Coming closer and closer to my core This is the sound this is the very floor Where Grief and his Wife are living looking up

Source: Guardian Visuals, 2015

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Sonnet 31 by William Shakespeare (read by Simon Callow)

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead, And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried.

How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye As interest of the dead, which now appear But things removed that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give; That due of many now is thine alone:

Their images I loved I view in thee, And thou, all they, has all the all of me.

Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets - Simon Callow

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"Epistle to Hugh Parker" by Robert Burns (read by Billy Boyd)

In this strange land, this uncouth clime, A land unknown to prose or rhyme; Where words ne'er crost the muse's heckles, Nor limpet in poetic shackles; A land that prose did never view it, Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it; Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek, Hid in an atmosphere of reek, I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk, I hear it - for in vain I leuk. The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel, Enhusked by a fog infernal: Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures, I sit and count my sins by chapters; For life and spunk like ither Christians, I'm dwindled down to mere existence, Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies, Wi' nae kenn'd face but Jenny Geddes. Jenny, my Pegasean pride! Dowie she saunters down Nithside, And aye a westlin leuk she throws, While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose! Was it for this, wi' canny care, Thou bure the Bard through many a shire? At howes or hillocks never stumbled, And late or early never grumbled? O, had I power like inclination, I'd heeze thee up a constellation, To canter with the Sagitarre, Or loup the ecliptic like a bar; Or turn the pole like any arrow; Or, when auld Phebus bids good-morrow, Down the zodiac urge the race, And cast dirt on his godship's face; For I could lay my bread and kail He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail. Wi' a' this care and a' this grief, And sma', sma' prospect of relief, And nought but peat reek i' my head, How can I write what ye can read? Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June, Ye'll find me in a better tune; But till we meet and weet our whistle, Tak this excuse for nae epistle.

Source: The works of Robert Burns, BBC

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"Rikki Tikki Tavi" by Rudyard Kipling (read by Ralph Fiennes) [excerpt]

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is a short story in the 1894 short story collection The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling about adventures of a valiant young Indian grey mongoose.

Source: Ralph Fiennes reads Rudyard Kipling, 2010

(Note: only the first half of the story was recorded for this audio. The full story can be read here.)

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Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare (read by Sir John Gielgud)

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets, 1996

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"The Mower's Song" by Andrew Marvell (read by John Lithgow)

My mind was once the true survey       Of all these meadows fresh and gay,       And in the greenness of the grass       Did see its hopes as in a glass;       When Juliana came, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

      But these, while I with sorrow pine,       Grew more luxuriant still and fine,       That not one blade of grass you spy’d       But had a flower on either side;       When Juliana came, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

      Unthankful meadows, could you so       A fellowship so true forgo?       And in your gaudy May-games meet       While I lay trodden under feet?       When Juliana came, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

      But what you in compassion ought,       Shall now by my revenge be wrought;       And flow’rs, and grass, and I and all,       Will in one common ruin fall.       For Juliana comes, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

      And thus, ye meadows, which have been       Companions of my thoughts more green,       Shall now the heraldry become       With which I shall adorn my tomb;       For Juliana comes, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me.

Source: The Poets' Corner

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Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare (read by Alex Jennings)

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Source: The Sonnets: William Shakespeare - Alex Jennings, 1997

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Robert Minhinnick's "The Rhinoceros" performed by Michael Sheen || Climate change poems

In 2015 actors including James Franco, Ruth Wilson, Gabriel Byrne, Maxine Peake, Jeremy Irons, Kelly Macdonald and Michael Sheen read a series of 20 original poems on the theme of climate change, curated by UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

A replica of pre-historic drawings showing animals (Photo by Robert Pratta/Reuters):

"The Rhinoceros" by Robert Minhinnick

On the Steel Beach

1. Look at these.

Thaw sweat. Smoke on the swale. Swarf off a swollen sea.

2. No. These. World famous footprints at low water. Nine thousand years old, they say, but who’s counting. Not me. Yet maybe I am.

3. A small man. Or woman. Outcast or outlaw, hunter, flintknapper, cook. All of these. Yes, a woman, pregnant once again, and coming home through the red mud.

4. Or maybe she was dancing. Yes, a woman, I guess, who loved to dance and paint her eyes with kohl and ochre and squat to squint at herself in some rock pool and ask “what are you?”

5. At night before she slept she would breathe her harsh hashish and tell her story behind the flames about the brine-bright animals she had scratched into the sand: her wolf, her bear, her rhinoceros.

Yes, an armoured rhino like the torrent poured golden and smoking from the blast furnace ladle, a rhino where the glacier will be

and coming out of the sun, a rhino she will picture with her goatwillowstick on the last morning she will wake.

Source: Guardian Visuals, 2015

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Sonnet 28 by William Shakespeare (read by Simon Callow)

How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarred the benefit of rest? When day's oppression is not eas'd by night, But day by night and night by day oppressed,

And each, though enemies to either's reign, Do in consent shake hands to torture me, The one by toil, the other to complain How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day, to please him thou art bright, And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night, When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.

Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets - Simon Callow

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Robert Burns' "It is na, Jean, thy bonie face" performed by Douglas Henshall

It is na, Jean, thy bonie face, Nor shape that I admire, Altho' thy beauty and thy grace Might weel awauk desire.

Something in ilka part o' thee To praise, to love, I find, But dear as is thy form to me, Still dearer is thy mind.

Nae mair ungen'rous wish I hae, Nor stronger in my breast, Than, if I canna mak thee sae, At least to see thee blest.

Content am I, if Heaven shall give But happiness to thee: And as wi' thee I'd wish to live, For thee I'd bear to die.

Source: The works of Robert Burns, BBC

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[somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond] by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Source: The Voice of the poet - E. E. Cummings, 1922

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Sonnet 27 by William Shakespeare (read by Sir John Gielgud)

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head To work my mind, when body's work's expired:

For then my thoughts--from far where I abide-- Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets, 1996

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T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - Quartet No. 2: "East Coker" performed by Ralph Fiennes

"East Coker" is the second poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. It was started as a way for Eliot to get back into writing poetry and was modelled after Burnt Norton. It was finished during early 1940 and printed for the Easter edition of the 1940 New English Weekly.

Quartet No. 1: Burnt Norton Quartet No. 2: East Coker Quartet No. 3: The Dry Salvages Quartet No. 4: Little Gidding

Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. An accurate online text.

I. In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf. Houses live and die: there is a time for building And a time for living and for generation And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls … … …

Source: Four Quartets read by Ralph Fiennes, 2009

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"Need Of Being Versed In Country Things" by Robert Frost

The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left To bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end For teams that came by the stony road To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, And the aged elm, though touched with fire; And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm; And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad. But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, One had to be versed in country things Not to believe the phoebes wept.

Source: Robert Frost reading his own poems, 1951