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Poem
The Waste Land Part I – The Burial of the Dead - T. S. Eliot
I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little…
Poem
The Waste Land Part III – The Fire Sermon - T. S. Eliot
III. The Fire Sermon The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my…
Poem
The Waste Land Part IV – Death by Water - T. S. Eliot
IV. Death by Water Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He…
Poem
The Waste Land Part V – What the Thunder said - T. S. Eliot
V. What the Thunder said After the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over…
Poem
The Waste Land Part II – A Game of Chess - T. S. Eliot
II. A Game of Chess The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out (Another hid his eyes…
Poet
T. S. Eliot
B. 1888 D. 1965
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) as a poet and critic came to define the modernist movement and still dominates the literary landscape of the last century. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a prominent local family. He attended Harvard…
Keystone
Poet
Ezra Pound
B. 1885 D. 1972
Ezra Pound (1885-1972) is now recognised as the central figure of Anglo/American modernism, the man who did most to shape the movement which in turn did most to shape the 20th Century cultural landscape in the west. Born in Idaho…
Poet
Edgell Rickword
B. 1898 D. 1982
Edgell Rickword (1898-1982) is best known as the influential editor of journals such as Calendar of Modern Letters and The Left Review and was a key figure in establishing radical criticism in the wake of the First World War. However,…
Poet
Phil Bowen
B. 1949
Phil Bowen is a poet, performer, biographer and playwright who has worked in over 600 schools in England and Wales as a poet-in-education since 1994. Born in Liverpool, he has published four full collections, including The Professor’s Boots (Westwords), Variety’s Hammer…
Poet
Paul Muldoon
B. 1951
Paul Muldoon is one of Ireland’s most outstanding contemporary poets, and one of the most admired English-language poets anywhere in the world. He was born into a Catholic family in 1951 in a predominantly Protestant region of Portadown, County Armagh…
The Classics
Sohrab and Rustum, ll. 857–end
Read by Alan Brownjohn
Sohrab and Rustum, ll. 857–end - Matthew Arnold - Read by Alan Brownjohn
So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; And the great Rustum drew his horseman’s cloak Down o’er his face, and sate by his dead son. As those black granite pillars, once high-rear’d By Jemshid in Persepolis, to bear His…
The Classics
Elegy written in a country church yard
Read by Maurice Riordan
by Thomas Gray
Elegy written in a country church yard - Thomas Gray - Read by Maurice Riordan
The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,…
The Classics
A Forsaken Garden
Read by Patience Agbabi
A Forsaken Garden - Algernon Swinburne - Read by Patience Agbabi
In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down’s edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A girdle of brushwood and thorn…