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Topic: DAMIEN MOLONY READING 8 POEMS | Poetry Please | June Miscellany | 21 June 2015

Post Info
June Miscellany: Which is your favourite ? [7 vote(s)]

‘The Sunlight on the Garden‘ By Louis MacNeice
0.0%
‘Bright Star‘ By Keats
42.9%
‘Lullaby‘ W.H Auden
14.3%
‘To Althea from Prison‘ By Richard Lovelace
14.3%
‘True Love‘ By Wislawa Szymborska
0.0%
‘Well Water‘ By Edmond Jabes
0.0%
‘The Bluebird‘ By Charles Bukowski
28.6%
‘Aunt Julia‘ By Norman MacCaig
0.0%
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DAMIEN MOLONY READING 8 POEMS | Poetry Please | June Miscellany | 21 June 2015
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Happy Molony Monday everyone!

Who is ready for an incredible treat?

For romance and sunlight?

 

Here are with another 8 poems (NEW) read by Damien!

With huge thanks to BBC Poetry Please for notifying me about their June Miscellany programme.

 

 Click below to listen to some beautiful poetry read beautifully..

 

Damien Molony readings | Poetry Please | June Miscellany

 

STANZAS OF SUNLIGHT AND LOVE: DAMIEN MOLONY READS FOR POETRY PLEASE’S JUNE MISCELLANY

 
© Poetry Please, BBC Radio 4

© Poetry Please, BBC Radio 4

 

Damien has made his fourth appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please, reading poems “to put some sunshine into your heart” in ‘June Miscellany’.

Giving voice to a delightfully varied range of works by great writers, Damien reads a total of eight poems, including the moving and masterfully rhyming ‘Sunlight in the garden’ by Louis MacNeice, tragically romantic ‘Bright Star’ by John Keats and potent love poem ‘Lullaby’ by W.H Auden.

The programme, hosted by Roger Mcgough and produced by Sally Heaven, also includes readings of poems by Christina Rossetti, Fleur Adcock, Jenny Joseph, Kathleen Raine, Lola Haskins and Margaret Atwood.

This is Damien’s fourth time on Poetry Please, having recently also been the actor reader on a Bloomsday Special.

Click below to listen to the programme in full on the BBC Radio iplayer, which works internationally.

 



The Sunlight on the Garden‘ By Louis MacNeice (5.07 – 6.08)

Bright Star‘ By Keats (11.11 – 12.16)

Lullaby‘ W.H Auden (12.46 – 14.44)

To Althea from Prison‘ By Richard Lovelace (15.09 – 16.46)

True Love‘ By Wislawa Szymborska (17.13 – 19.07)

Well Water‘ By Edmond Jabes (20.07 – 21.27)

The Bluebird‘ By Charles Bukowski (22.07 – 23.16)

Aunt Julia‘ By Norman MacCaig (24.47 – 26.23)

 

We are delighted and grateful for our favourite actor’s growing audio library, Damien has truly become Mr Radio 4, a gifted voice talent perfect for poetic works from classic to modern.

“Swoon” indeed.

 

 

 

 



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Damiac
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RE: NEW!!!!!! MORE DAMIEN MOLONY READINGS on Poetry Please | June Miscellany
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Eek!!  Excellent!!!

I look foward to being able to sit down in a quiet room with some headphones and a cuppa to have a listen later.  Thanks domino!  And thanks Poetry Please and Radio 4.  Oh and thanks radio iplayer!!!



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Marvellous Molonian Moderator
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Oh that's so exciting! Can't wait to hear these! And that's really kind of Poetry Please to let you know about them, domino. They must realise how much we all enjoy listening to Damien's beautiful readings.

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Damiac
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Oh my!!! WHAT A TREAT! I need to sit down today and listen these in peace....

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What a wonderful surprise to wake up to!

The producers at Poetry Please know they have a rapt audience in Damien fans!  Very lovely they gave you the heads up.

Sunlight and Love.  I need prepare properly for this... *throws cushions on the floor*



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A lilt in his voice.  Every sentence like music...
#kisskisskiss 
A terrible beauty is born.
Love me some #Jacksass

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The 'The Sunlight on the Garden' By Louis MacNeice was very melancholic, it was very weird to listen. Reminded me about Hal. But brilliantly read, somehow sad poem.

‘Bright Star‘ By Keats was very lovely, Damien's voice was very swift and the whole poem went on like water. Liked it!

‘Lullaby‘ W.H Auden, I don't know what I was expecting but that is very dark lullaby. There is no better than Damien whispering softly poems.

‘To Althea from Prison‘ By Richard Lovelac, dark but powerful poem. "When (like committed linnets) I with shriller throat shall sing" <---- that part. I tried at least three times say it myself until I got it.

‘True Love‘ By Wislawa Szymborska,  at first I thought this was very sad and bitter poem. I didn't quite like when Damien read that only cause I wouldn't want to hear such things coming out of his mouth. When he said "True love. Is it little necessary?" it made me frown and I answered "yes". I had to save the situationbiggrin Had to read it and try to figure out the meaning of this poem. The ending kind of turns the poem over and says that there is true love and everything writer meant on the poem she thinks opposite in the end. Which I think is quite genius.

"Let the people who never find true love 

keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die."

 

‘Well Water‘ By Edmond Jabes ooh I liked this one. Like reading writers thought straight from the head as they are. I don't know how to explain it better. Had to hear it twice, Damien reads it very well. The very beginning is so good.

‘The Bluebird‘ By Charles Bukowski, MY FAVORITE!!! That smokey sound on Damien's voice while he reads it was.. super hot. Sorry! But I could almost picture him on the corner drinking whiskey, little drunk and smoking (smoking isn't good but that pic in my head). Swoooon for that voice... thudGoing to be listening this forever...

 

‘Aunt Julia‘ By Norman MacCaig, very vivid poem indeed, there was so many emotions in Damien's voice in this, makes him perfect reader cause he can pick up those emotions from paper and bring that poem to life.

This really made my Monday, hopefully everyone enjoyed this as much as I did!aww

 

 

 



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I absolutely adore Damien reading poetry.  The steady cadence, the lilt of his accent, the emphasis and power.  But poetry is such a fickle thing.  Sometimes full of layers of meaning.  Sometimes a snapshot of a moment.  And many times, my brain just has a hard time processing it!  I can read books and be immersed in their worlds, I can listen to audiobooks and follow along, but something about poetry skips across lightly in my consciousness and I end up just getting lost in his voice without actually understanding what I just heard.  So I had to find the poems so I could see the words as Damien voiced them. 

 

I have to divide my post as it is too long.

 

The Sunlight on the Garden

Louis MacNeice

 

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon. 

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances. 

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying 

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden. 

 

Bright Star

John Keats

 

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 earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft sweel and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

 

Lullaby

W. H. Auden

 

Lay your sleeping head, my love,

Human on my faithless arm;

Time and fevers burn away

Individual beauty from

Thoughtful children, and the grave

Proves the child ephemeral:

But in my arms till break of day

Let the living creature lie,

Mortal, guilty, but to me

The entirely beautiful.

 

Soul and body have no bounds:

To lovers as they lie upon

Her tolerant enchanted slope

In their ordinary swoon,

Grave the vision Venus sends

Of supernatural sympathy,

Universal love and hope;

While an abstract insight wakes

Among the glaciers and the rocks

The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.

 

Certainty, fidelity

On the stroke of midnight pass

Like vibrations of a bell,

And fashionable madmen raise

Their pedantic boring cry:

Every farthing of the cost,

All the dreaded cards foretell,

Shall be paid, but from this night

Not a whisper, not a thought,

Not a kiss nor look be lost.

 

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:

Let the winds of dawn that blow

Softly round your dreaming head

Such a day of welcome show

Eye and knocking heart may bless,

Find our mortal world enough;

Noons of dryness find you fed

By the involuntary powers,

Nights of insult let you pass

Watched by every human love.


To Althea, from Prison

Richard Lovelace


I.

When love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates;
And my divine ALTHEA brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lye tangled in her haire,
And fetterd to her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the aire,
Know no such liberty.

II.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying THAMES,
Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
Know no such libertie.

III.
When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such liberty.

IV.
Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
Enjoy such liberty. 



__________________

papillon... pamplemousse... bibliothèque... un baiser
A lilt in his voice.  Every sentence like music...
#kisskisskiss 
A terrible beauty is born.
Love me some #Jacksass

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I could not find Well Water by Edmund Jabes at all, so I typed it up while listening.  I don't know how the structure is, just went by Damien's pauses.

 

True Love

Wislawa Szymborska

 

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way – in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn’t this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn’t it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn’t they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends’ sake?
Listen to them laughing – it’s an insult.
The language they use – deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines –
it’s obviously a plot behind the human race’s back!

It’s hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who’d want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life’s highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn’t populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there’s no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die. 

Well Water

Edmund Jabes

 

Fetch the well water

give thirst a moment

of respite

the hand

the chance to save

night of the eyelashes

be seen.

object shines for hand

noise grazes noise

water rings memory

the term

the foreworld

gone beyond care

the adventure is faithful to the fire dream's knell

I am 

I was hinged

long line of dear

I see, shall see, confidence of the tree in the fruit.

chalk days

the slates flutter with first fruits

words survive sign and landscape ink

roads the infinite

the gift of the face

to the seasons wrinkles

to the earth

great rivers.



Bluebird

Charles Bukowski

 

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up? 
you want to screw up the
works? 
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe? 
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you? 



Aunt Julia

Norman MacCaig

 

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her - 
I could not understand her.

She wore men's boots
When she wore any.
-I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvelously out of the air.

Hers was the only house
where I've lain at night
in the absolute darkness
of a box bed, listening to 
crickets being friendly.

She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot.

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned 
a little, she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre.
But I hear her still, welcoming me
with a seagull's voice
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
with so many questions
unanswered.

 

 

 



__________________

papillon... pamplemousse... bibliothèque... un baiser
A lilt in his voice.  Every sentence like music...
#kisskisskiss 
A terrible beauty is born.
Love me some #Jacksass

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Phew, now that I got all those in (wrestled with forum formatting and finally gave up) I can sit back and relax and really do a proper 3rd listen. Tomorrow when I'm not sleepy.  Then I might actually have something to say. LOL



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papillon... pamplemousse... bibliothèque... un baiser
A lilt in his voice.  Every sentence like music...
#kisskisskiss 
A terrible beauty is born.
Love me some #Jacksass

Marvellous Molonian Moderator
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Thanks for sharing all the poems, whimsy!

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DMF
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I am still in the rapture stage over these and the other 8 poems on the Bloomsday Poetry Please episode. Unable to formulate a coherent review of any kind. It's emotional!

One less emotive thing... love the accent in Bluebird.



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Molonian
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The poems referred to as cynical by the presenter are the ones I find most touching. Not sure what that says about me, other than that I am a realist who knows the world is a broken place and we are broken in it. Imperfect love is the only human kind of love, and I enjoy most those poets who recognize that.
Damien's voice is perfect for poetry. He's a master at it. We are very fortunate to have found him.

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He'd have told me to join him, and I would. - still true!

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Cynical seems too limiting a word as well.. for me it's more a case of quality art attempting to paint the complexities of life, when it can never actually be contained by anything.. but poetry manages to get very close to it, conjuring that quintessential something else beyond the words... enhanced beautifully by Damien's reading which in my mind is also that quintessential something else beyond words.

It is hard to pick a favourite. I am most struck that he read Keats, though...


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Molonian
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'True Love' rings very deeply with me, as I've been broken and badly damaged by love. It is easier to live without it. The cool clarity of aloneness is so much gentler than the crippling compromises that come from bending your heart and will to the service of something more powerful than yourself. People see the outside of it, but don't know the inner workings. The last few lines of the poem turn the knife in the heart of the rest of it.
Now that I've said all that, you can understand why 'Bluebird' means so much to me.

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Finally got round to listening to these but am too busy swooning at Damien's beautiful readings at the moment (or is it the heat?!) to say anything profound or sensible about the poems themselves! I think I'll need another few listens....

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RE: DAMIEN MOLONY READING 8 POEMS | Poetry Please | June Miscellany | 21 June 2015
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Molonians! 

Which of the 8 poems readings by Damien in Poetry Please's 'June Miscellany' is your favourite?

 

 

VOTE in the POLL at the top of this thread 

and comment below!

 

Please also vote in the Poetry Please Bloomsday Poll!

 



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I voted Keats.. for reasons...

halep5-26.jpg



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Marvellous Molonian Moderator
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I chose Bluebird. I also liked To Althea from Prison but Bluebird seemed to resonate more. I loved Damien 's reading of it. You could just imagine a surly, whiskey soaked man in a bar, his voice gravelly from too many cigarettes thinking about the secrets in his heart, not allowing himself to be happy

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That pic made me smile, domino !

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Thank you for voting Rosie!
'Bluebird' was a close second for me, powerful poem, read powerfully. Commanding performance.

It is impossible to choose just one in truth, ALL are stunning... so my reasoning for Keats is simply the additional smile it gave me with reference to Hal.

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Thanks to those who have voted in the poll so far - it looks like 'Bright Star' and 'The Bluebird' are current joint favourites

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This is really pretty tricky!!  Favourite poem, or favourite reading??!  I mean - all of the readings are superb.....so it has to come down to the poem, right?

I really like 'The Sunlight in the Garden' because I do love rhyme and metre in a poem...and it is very satisying on that account - very musical!

Keat's imagery is beautiful....and I agree, domino - it brought a smile to my face to hear Damien reading Keats, so that has to be a favourite.  But 'Lullaby' and 'To Athena from Prison' are also loaded with beautiful imagery....

'The Bluebird' is incredibly evocative....actually made me think of Hemmingway! And we're all a bit of a sucker for the hard man with the soft underbelly, right?!  But then 'Aunt Julia' was also very evocative....

I think the only certainty is that I'm pretty undecided!



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Damiac
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And thanks for posting the copies of the poems whimsy - it's lovely to be able to read them, as well as listen!



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I love how much Radio 4 have been using Damien for their poetry readings. Fingers crossed for lots more :)

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*** JUST 2 DAYS LEFT TO LISTEN! ***

Damien Molony reading 8 poems | Poetry Please | June Miscellany

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