Topic: Sylvia Plath Pt1 Host: Mike Poem: "Mad Girl's Love Song" and "Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats" Recorded: January 20, 2022

Sylvia Plath Poems

This week Poetry Club takes on the work and life of Sylvia Plath, an American poet (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963).  Poetry Club looks past her "sad girl" persona and rejoices in the craft and construction of this mid-20th century poet's marvelous work.  The range of her work is explored as we compare the energy of "Mad Girl's Love Song" to "Ella Mason and Her Eleven Cats" in the first of this series.  Plath's word choice, rhythm, hyperbole, and images are examined.  Join us as we dive into the Queen of Confessional Poetry.

"In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1955.

After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.

Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957 and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England, where she gave birth to her children Frieda and Nicholas, in 1960 and 1962, respectively.

In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel.

In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. She died on February 11 of that year. 

Plath’s poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement and compared to the work of poets such as Lowell and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme." https://poets.org/poet/sylvia-plath

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Topic: Seamus Heaney Pt3 Host: Mike Poem: "St. Kevin and the Blackbird" Recorded: January 6, 2022

Heaney_St. Kevin and the Blackbird

Mike puts on the host hat in this third discussion on Seamus Heaney's poetry, using the book "Seamus Heaney" by Helen Vendler as a guide.  The poem this time is "St. Kevin and the Blackbird".  Heaney documents the folklore of a monk with intense control over body and mind that he held out his arm and opened his hand to be used as a tree branch for a nesting blackbird.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and Professor of Poetry at Oxford and Harvard universities, Seamus Heaney was perhaps the best known and most celebrated poet of the last fifty years. His death in 2013 prompted tributes from across the world.

"Seamus Heaney’s development as a poet is inextricably connected to the violent struggle that has racked Northern Ireland. Vendler shows how, from one volume to the next, Heaney has maintained vigilant attention toward finding a language for his time—“symbols adequate for our predicament,” as he has said. The worldwide response to those discovered symbols suggests that their relevance extends far beyond this moment."

Purchase Helen Vendler's book "Seamus Heaney" here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674002050

Watch/Listen Seamus read the poem on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wKGmQcSFbMc

Poetry Club Talks is produced by Chickadee Productions

Topic: Seamus Heaney Pt2 Host: Ron Poems: "Mid-term Break", "Villanelle For An Anniversary", "The Cure of Troy" Recorded: December 16, 2021

Seamus Heaney Poems

Ron guides Poetry Club through another riveting discussion on select poems by Seamus Heaney. Amory and Linda share their experience of attending a reading by Heaney while visiting Ireland.  We take a look at the different rhyme landscapes of his work, moods, mastery of storytelling, and more.  Join us for the deliberation of a much-loved poet.

"Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996 he was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1998 was bestowed the title Saoi of the Aosdána. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), the T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999).[3][4] In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust.

Heaney is buried at the Cemetery of St Mary's Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph "Walk on air against your better judgement", from one of his poems, "The Gravel Walks".[8]"

From Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Heaney

Poetry Club Talks... is produced by Chickadee Productions