A collection of poems for the Summer Solstice
A collection of poems on Radio 4 celebrating the summer solstice. Poets Fiona Benson, Kathy Towers and Raymond Antrobus join readers with poems on the theme of summer and light.
A collection of the poems that featured throughout the day on Radio 4 celebrating the Summer Solstice.
Poets Fiona Benson, Kathy Towers and Raymond Antrobus join readers, Paapa Essiedu, Michael Sheen, Simon Russell Beale, Noma Dumezweni, Harriet Walter, Siobhan Redmond and Anton Lesser with poems on the theme of summer and light.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
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Poems and Music
Sunflower
By Fiona Benson
From Bright Travellers
Published by Jonathan Cape
Music: ‘Pu Ert Solin/You are the Sun’ by Olafur Arnalds
Sonnet 94
By William Shakespeare
Read by Paapa Essiedu
A Green Thought
By Kathy Towers
From https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/summer-solstice-poem-katharine-towers
Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert
From Refusing Heaven
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Read by Simon Russell Beale
Music: ‘Moderately Slow’ by William Grant Still
A Bee
by Peter Didsbury
From Scenes From A Long Sleep – New and Collected Poems
Published by Bloodaxe, 2003
Read by Anton Lesser
Music: 'The Journey’ from Be:ONE by Wolfgang Buttress
Dream Variations
by Langston Hughes
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
Published by Vintage / Random House
Read by Noma Dumezweni
Music: ‘Forest’ by Don Ellis
There Came a Wind like a Bugle
by Emily Dickinson
From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Published by Faber and Faber
Read by Harriet Walter
I Want the Confidence Of
By Raymond Antrobus
From The Perseverance
Published by Penned in the Margins
Ah Sunflower
by William Blake
Read by Siobhan Redmond
Music: ‘Fur Alina’ by Arvo Part
Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island Minnesota
By James Wright
From Above the River – The Complete Poems
Published by Bloodaxe
Read by Simon Russell Beale
The Mower to the Glow worms
by Andrew Marvell
From Andrew Marvell – Selected Poems
Published by Fyfield Books
Read by Anton Lesser
Light Breaks When no Sun Shines
by Dylan Thomas
From Dylan Thomas – The Poems
Published by J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd
Read byMichael Sheen
Music: ‘First Light, Plateau of Mirror’ Brian Eno and Harold Budd
Broadcast
- Sun 24 Jun 201816:30BBC Radio 4 FM
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