Prince Charles kicks off National Poetry Day celebrations

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From The Bookseller:

Celebrations for National Poetry Day are underway with Prince Charles reciting his favourite poem on Radio 2 and poets across the country revealing new poems inspired by the places we call home.

On BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show today (3rd October), Prince Charles, in a pre-recorded clip, spoke about Bernard Levin’s Quoting Shakespeare, saying how the poem “reminds one of how remarkable the English playwright was”, before reciting the poem.

He added: “I would like to read what I’ve always thought was something rather special, written, it must be over 40 years ago I suppose, by somebody called Bernard Levin. He wrote this, I think, brilliant piece entitled Quoting Shakespeare. It was one of Bernard Levin’s enthusiasms. The great thing about it, I think, is it reminds us all just how many words and phrases we use in the English language and in general conversation which actually were originally written by Shakespeare.”

. . . .

Forwards Arts Foundation executive director Susannah Herbert said: “National Poetry Day is a chance to put a collective ear to the ground, hear what really matters to people and share it in a form that everyone can enjoy – verse. BBC Local Radio’s listeners’ love of vivid, memorable language, their delight in their dialects, their pride in  their traditions of welcome, are all honoured in this year’s #HomeTruths initiative. They say it takes a village to raise a child: maybe the same is true of poetry. It takes a county, a city, an entire country to create a poem.”

Link to the rest at The Bookseller

A couple of thoughts sprang into PG’s mind [the mind was startled] while he was reading the OP.

  1. Prince Charles’ handlers should never allow him to be quoted directly. Instead, he can say what he wants, wandering all over the linguistic plains, then have a skilled translator/editor modify his words into something much shorter that doesn’t make him sound like a twit.
  2. As a longtime fan of excellent poetry, PG suggests that most modern poets would write more interesting works if they chose subjects and expressed opinions that might get them arrested or, at least, fired.
  3. With respect to the final sentence of the OP, PG finally understands why so much modern poetry is self-indulgent mush – an entire society must write and approve of a poem instead of a single intense, driven, obsessive, unreasonable, neurotic and brilliant individual.

Here is how Quoting Shakespeare begins:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me,”
You are quoting Shakespeare.

If you claim to be “more sinned against than sinning,”
You are quoting Shakespeare.

If you act “more in sorrow than in anger,”
if your wish is “father to the thought,”
if your property has “vanished into thin air,”
You are quoting Shakespeare.