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 everyone.
I rather like that idea, so maybe I’ll do a reading of a new poem each day.
Reading a Poem a Day During Lockdown
I’ve got some favourites I’d love to share.
There’s Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’, which is so good I’ve been attempting to memorise it.
There’s Sonnet CXXI from Shakespeare (‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d), which transcends time and demonstrates his supreme understanding of the human condition.
There’s works from Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and Christina Rossetti.
I started with ‘A Litany in Time of Plague’ by Thomas Nashe.
This little poem-a-day thing isn’t supposed to be virus-related. In fact, it’s supposed to be a reaction to the lockdown that takes the emphasis off that sort of thing. Something nice among the stress.
But you can’t deny that a poem composed during the time of Bubonic Plague is an apt poem to kick off.
I think Day Two’s poem is very apt too.
It’s ‘The Snowman’ by Wallace Stevens.
Stevens has a ton of great poems (check out his first volume, Harmonium), but as the leaves fall from the trees and the sky begins to blanche snow white during the day and jet black from early afternoon, I thought this was a lovely poem to read.
Sometimes I’ll sit and face the camera and read, other times I’ll just throw the poem up on the screen and talk into my mic.
But we’re just reading here.
Feel free to analyse these poems, or pass comment on them, even a simple ‘I liked it’ or ‘Not my cup of tea’, but we’re just going to focus on enjoying them and resisting deep analysis (that’s what the podcast is for).
Art for art’s sake.
Having said that, every poem I read will be selected for it’s perennial evergreen quality. These are poems one can read and enjoy again and again, and always find new meaning in them as they age and weather the slings and arrows of life.
I decided to do these poetry readings for a few reasons. Obviously, I enjoy reading poetry aloud. But I feel a small sense of obligation to share. I love listening to poetry recordings, but there is a lack of great readings.
You can find Ian McKellen reading Wordsworth’s Prelude and endless recordings of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier online, and luckily many poets like T.S. Eliot and Louise Glück read their own poetry, but very often I will search for a reading of a poem that I have enjoyed and can only come across a few recordings in which the reader seems to have missed the reading of the poem, or not quite caught the cadence correctly.
I’m not a voice actor or RADA-educated thespian, but I believe my readings capture the meaning of the poems and convey them in a way that makes understanding them easier and more enjoyable.
Let me know some of your favourite poems.
I’ll be on the lookout for great ones to read each day.
Happy reading!
Also – subscribe to the Hardcore Literature YouTube channel and you’ll get a notification when the daily poem reading has gone up (the channel is currently very small, so if you like this sort of thing your subscription would be greatly valued).