A Poet's Guide to Britain

[David]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k99tf

Interestin'?

[Ros]

Can't find where it might say who the other poets are. Are they all going to be antique ones?

[David]

Probably!

[OwenEdwards]

Must we use antique so perjoratively? Surely it just means "proven"! Something fit to be disseminated as the front end of poetry to an unartistic public (aren't they all). Even BBC Four watchers are predominantly only half-educated.

I can imagine Hughes getting in there though.

[Ros]

I suppose it's just that it's a case of round up the usual suspects. Interesting turn of phrase you use there - what do you consider they'd need to know to be more than half-educated?

[David]

If it's semi-geographical, which I think it is, there'll probably be one of the Thomases. Dylan, most likely.

[OwenEdwards]

I suppose it's just that it's a case of round up the usual suspects. Interesting turn of phrase you use there - what do you consider they'd need to know to be more than half-educated?

More, my dear, always MORE. Wilde was not made from a spotty knowledge of Saint-Saens and an interest in politics. We all of us should be far more educated than we are, in whatever areas we show any aptitude with.

[Ros]

But we can't be Renaissance Man any more, can we? There's just Too Much Stuff to know. And however many books I buy (and it's a lot), there's never time to read it all. Not that I remember it that well, anyway.

I do think there should be some basic compost layer of stuff all people should know. Literature, science, etc. Oh, wait, that's what schools used to do.

[BenJohnson]

Has anyone watched the first one? I was rather disappointed by it, it seemed to be an old muck raking exercise more than insightful material.

[David]

Saw it last night, Ben. Yes, I found it a bit disappointing too. Poetry on TV needs a great evangelical crusading representative, not one of these wistful Open University lecturer types. (I have nothing against Open University lecturers. I don't want you to think I'm being hard on a group of very well-meaning people. They're just not evangelists and crusaders.)

[BenJohnson]

Well Sylvia Plath is next I suspect Ted Hughes affair will feature most prominently. Oh, and we might get treated to a Plath poem if we are lucky.

[cameron]

Last night's George Mackay Brown was very good, I thought. Must have a look at Hamnavoe sometime.

PS - just found it here:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarch ... oemId=1540

[David]

I didn't see the GMB one, but I know very little about him anyway. Definitely a reason to catch the repeat.

[BenJohnson]

The Sylvia Plath episode was a lot better than expected, certainly better than the Wordsworth one, I'll watch the GMB one tonight.

[Patrick92]

I really liked this series. I aggree the first episode on Wordsworth was a bore. However, all the other episodes were really good in the way they dealt with the poem and the poets life and actually introduced relatively unknown poets. Matthew Arnold, George Mackay Brown and Lynette Roberts were all totally unknown to me before and I was really fascinated by this programme.
I found it funny though the way there were such low expectations by everyone on this thread saying how they just roll out old favourites when Owen Sheers (himself an established poet) gave us insights into the lives of some of these poets that we could probably never realise ourselves because it was a very personal series for him.

[Charles]

Last night's George Mackay Brown was very good, I thought. Must have a look at Hamnavoe sometime.

PS - just found it here:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarch ... oemId=1540

I agree, need to obtain more of his work somehow.