Let’s talk about poems that haunt you across the years. In the latest video, we’re talking about how Emily Dickinson made me believe in ghosts, how W.B. Yeats is entwined in my childhood grief, and how Donne hooked me on poetry for life. We’re also talking about Browning, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, and Shakespeare The 7 […]
Lecture on Shakespeare’s Sonnets
I’ve just put out a free 75-minute lecture on Shakespeare’s sonnets, available with topic timestamps here: Thank you to everyone who has emailed me to recommend tons of great sonnet-related resources. I have so much to read now! Indeed, the journey never ends. And thank you to those who recommended poets for us to explore […]
Poetry is Death and Past Life Regression (A Theory of Poetry)
Why do some lines of poetry move us more than others? Why do seemingly innocuous lines, lines that many might glide over, lines unsavoured by the mass of men, so enrapture us? Why did this line, from the third stanza of Keats’ ‘To Autumn’, inspire tears in me late last night, compelling me to reread […]
How to Possess a Poem by Memory
Memorisation is a lost art. Particularly when it comes to poetry. People hardly even read poetry anymore, let alone memorise poems. But memorising a poem is possessing a poem, and that’s where most of a poem’s value comes in. Here’s how to memorise a poem
My Favourite Shakespearean Sonnet (Video)
Did you know Shakespeare started writing the sonnets during Elizabethan lockdown? All the theatres were shut because of plague. So what’s a playwright to do? Well, he penned Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and got started on his sonnet sequence. I say “get started” because Shakespeare wrote the 154 sonnets over 2 decades. […]
A Platter of Poetry Readings
A poetry reading for every day of lockdown. And here’s the first week. Thank you to those who recommended their favourite poems. I said I’d read your favourite poems, and here they are. So keep them coming! It was a great first week, with poetry from Thomas Nashe, Wallace Stevens, William Shakespeare, Ernest Dowson, Alfred […]
I’m Reading a Poem a Day During Lockdown – Any Requests?
England’s gone into it’s second nationwide lockdown. A lot of people are feeling quite miserable. I really liked Sir Patrick Stewart’s response to the first lockdown. He read one of Shakespeare’s sonnets every single day. And ended up getting through all of them as the lockdown stretched on longer than the government had originally told […]
The Poetry of Reddit: Vol. 1 (Video)
One of my favourite pastimes is being an absolute snob. I like to scroll through the poetry subreddit, r/Poetry, and lightly shit-talk the criticisms and selections. So why not turn the camera on for that? The Poetry of Reddit: Vol. 1 This tentative first episode contains poems by: Bukowski Shakespeare D. H. Lawrence Mako Iwamatsu […]
How to Read Shakespeare in a Year (Video)
I’ve talked about how to read the complete works of Shakespeare in a year. But I’ve recently decided to read everything Shakespeare wrote in chronological order and document my journey in video form, kicking off with this introductory video here: I’ve decided on reading Shakespeare chronologically because I want to know Shakespeare the man, the […]
#1 Poetry Reading Round-Up: Hopkins, Sappho, Catullus, Browning, Donne
I’ve been recording a lot of poetry readings. It’s my new favourite pastime. Reading poems aloud energises them (and me), makes meaning clear, and gives me the same feeling as a decent glass of red wine. I’ll be playing around with long poetry readings with 10-20 poems from disparate poets perhaps grouped by theme, with […]