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Poet
John Keats
B. 1795 D. 1821
Keats was born in London in 1795. His father was killed in a riding accident when Keats was eight; his mother died six years later, probably from tuberculosis. The loss of his parents, especially of his mother, was to help…
The Classics
Ode on Melancholy
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
Ode on Melancholy - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle, nor the…
The Classics
Ode to a Nightingale
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minuute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,…
The Classics
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pil’d books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge…
The Classics
Bright Star
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
Bright Star - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art ? Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round…
The Classics
On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer
Read by Simon Russell Beale
by John Keats
On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer - John Keats - Read by Simon Russell Beale
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That…
The Classics
Where be ye going, you Devon maid?
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
Where be ye going, you Devon maid? - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
Where be ye going, you Devon maid?And what have ye there i’ the basket?Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy,Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?I love your meads, and I love your flowers,And I love…
The Classics
To Autumn
Read by Andrew Motion
by John Keats
To Autumn - John Keats - Read by Andrew Motion
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit…
Poet
Michael Longley
B. 1939 D. 2025
Michael Longley (b.1939, Belfast) is a central figure in contemporary Irish poetry. A forceful figure within the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, where he founded the literary programme, he was one of the 200 distinguished artists who are members of…
Poem
Prelude to a New Fin-de-Siècle - David Gascoyne
Incessant urging, curt, peremptory: Write what you will, in verse, or otherwise, Intelligible, using simple metaphors. Address a reader not just hypothetical But flesh and blood in no need of harangues. The time has come. We’re on the very brink…
Poet
Stanley Kunitz
B. 1905 D. 2006
Stanley Kunitz [1905-2006] is a towering figure in American poetry, not just by dint of his longevity, but for the fact that he was still producing some of his finest work well into his nineties. His vitality and continuing relevance…
Poet
Helen Dunmore
B. 1952 D. 2017
Helen Dunmore (1952-2017) was the second of four children, her father the eldest of twelve. As she said herself “In a large family you hear a great many stories,” a grounding which influenced her career as a writer of both poetry…
Poet
Stephanie Norgate
B. 1957
Stephanie Norgate was born in 1957 and grew up in Selborne, Hampshire. She spent part of her childhood reading the naturalist Gilbert White and playing in his house and garden, which impelled an early love of nature and of writing….
Poem
A Discursive Poem About Poetry and Thought - C. K. Stead
‘Opinion is not worth a rush’ – W. B. Yeats Who cares what the poets think? Shelley said they were ‘unacknowledged legislators’. He made paper boats of his thoughts and set them sailing on the Thames at Marlow – much…
Poet
Penelope Shuttle
B. 1947
Penelope Shuttle (b. 1947) has made her home in Cornwall since 1970 and the county’s mercurial weather and rich history are continuing sources of inspiration. So too is the personal and artistic union Shuttle shared with her husband, the poet…
Poet
Andrew Motion
B. 1952
Andrew Motion read English at Oxford University where he won the Newdigate Prize and studied the work of Edward Thomas, an abiding influence. At Hull University he taught English and worked alongside Philip Larkin, another acknowledged mentor, whose official biographer…
Poem
John Keats in Winchester Say you had been for a walk by the river among fields of dry yellow and brown whose smell was baking, as if the earth were their oven, but the afternoon was warm and cold at…
Poet
John Milton
B. 1608 D. 1674
John Milton was born in 1608 in Bread Street, Cheapside, the son of a composer and scrivener. He was educated at St Paul’s School and Christ’s College, Cambridge and seemed destined for the priesthood. However, at Cambridge he began to…