Why are there so few decent poetry podcasts?

The late John Berryman described A.E. Houseman as a “hateful, miserable man.'' He is arrogant, indescribably lonely, brutal, but a truly great minor poet, and also a great scholar. ” of times The obituary writer went further, asserting that Huisman was at times “so unapproachable as to be covered with frost.” That such a man could be so moved by cherry blossom trees in the spring and the Shropshire valleys in the autumn says something about the separability of art and life.

The biggest contradiction in the return of Frank Skinner's poetry podcast for its ninth series lies between Hausman's work as a Cambridge classical scholar and his poetry. As Skinner observes, there are relatively few classical allusions in this work. shropshire lads, one of the most accessible collections of the late 19th century. The poet's metrical expression is far from the rhythm of classical scholarship.

As any pilgrim will tell you, the topography of some of the poems is also scandalously inaccurate. As Skinner so well put it, Huisman's Shropshire is not that of a Shropshireman versed in its “mechanical rudiments,” but that of a Worcester who gazes across the border “after a lunchtime pint.” It belongs to the Shahs. That is, we should not expect to identify every valley or spire from his descriptions.

Listening to Skinner talk about his poetry is like sitting next to a philosopher and talking to yourself in the mirror. He paces, stops, starts running with childish enthusiasm, hesitates, straightens, stops. It's hard to tell whether his “I'm not qualified to talk about this” approach is completely sincere or completely head-on (I think it's probably closer to the former); That's adorable. There is no doubting the depth of his genuine excitement when he reveals that a piece of Sappho was found in the package of a mummified crocodile.

It's frankly a crime to say that Skinner's is the best podcast about poetry.