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This Is Poetry (OL 2019) videos: Alternative course
W.H. Auden: Funeral Blues
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan
Martin Dyar: Death and the Post Office
Randolph Healy: Frogs
Robert Herrick: To Daffodils
Rachel Loden: Memo From the Benefits Department
Benjamin Zephaniah: The Sun
Piano
Play the video below. What do you feel as you listen to the music? Do your feelings change as the piece progresses? Try listening to the music with your eyes closed. What thoughts or memories does the piece inspire?
The Snake
This video is a short film about snakes. While you are watching the video, document your thoughts and feelings about these creatures. Do your feelings about snakes change as you watch and learn about them?
Hummingbird
Watch the video below. Identify two ways in which its representation of this distant time is similar to Lawrence’s and two ways in which it is different.
What have they done to you?
Watch the video carefully. Would you have preferred to live as a farmer in a rural village prior to the industrial evolution, or as a worker in a textile factory after that revolution had occurred? Write a paragraph explaining your answer.
The Uncle Speaks in the Drawing Room
Watch Video 5. How would you describe the atmosphere of the crowd? What are they protesting against? Do you imagine that they will take further action to get what they want? What form do you imagine this action taking?
Storm Warnings
Watch Video 6. What does listening to this weather report make you feel? Does it make you feel nervous or excited? Do you think that our sophisticated understanding of the weather and our ability to predict it guarantee our safety? Give reasons for your answer.
Diving into the Wreck
Watch Video 7, which contains footage from an expedition to the Titanic in 2004. Then answer the following questions:
• What is the condition of the ship’s hull?
• What objects and details does the camera focus on?
• In your opinion, what is the most striking and dramatic shot in this video?
Power
Watch Video 8. What most impressed you about the life of Marie Curie?
Tintern Abbey
Watch Video 9. What did you find most appealing about the landscape surrounding Tintern Abbey? Why doyou think artists and poets have been so taken with this particular place?
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
Listen to the song featured on Video 10 , which features this and several other ‘Lucy’ poems set to music by the Divine Comedy. Write a short review of the track commenting on your opinion of a) the singing, b) the melody and accompaniment and c) the appropriateness of such a musical backing to Wordsworth’s poetry.
Solitary Reaper
Watch Video 11, which features a song in Scots Gaelic by Julie Fowlis. Consider the tune and the sound of the words and suggest what the song might be about. Can you enjoy songs written in a language you don’t understand? Give reasons for your answer.