Waterskiing on Poetry - Waving hello to poems and poets with Neil Elder

In this episode we consider the desire to be one of the crowd at the expense of your real identity. Would you deny your parents and your background so that you could 'fit in'? Or is that idea outdated in 2026, are we ready to proclaim who we really are? We explore these ideas via 'Dance Class' by Hannah Lowe, and 'In A White Town' by Daljit Nagra. You can find the poems on these links - https://pr...

Ep 14. Recorded on Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday, this episode treads an ecological path. We explore 'The Flower-Fed Buffaloes' by Vachel Lindsay, and 'Report To Wordsworth' by Boey Kim Cheng. Both poems raise the matter of how human activity impacts the environment - and at the end of our skim across those poetic waters, I offer my poem in honour of Sir David. To rea...

Leaving home ain’t easyOn the one you're leaving home (Brian May) In this episode we explore the inevitable sense of love and loss that has to happen when children become independent and move beyond the orbit of their parents. Our exploration of this theme is built around the poems 'Walking Away' by C.Day Lewis, and 'To A Daughter Leaving Home' by Linda Pastan; two poems we hold up to the light an...

Imagine a museum of the future. What would you put in it? Would you put your vinyl, video cassettes and cheque book in there? Oh, and what would you leave out of the museum display? Do you have anything that is just too valuable and personal for the public gaze? Are we in danger of forgetting things if they are not preserved? When we all move to Mars some time in the future, could emotions like lo...

Love dogs or hate dogs? Either way, this one is for you. Here we wave hello to Billy Collins and Jack Underwood with their poems Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House and A man is dragging a dead dog, respectively . But these poems take us further than just having a nice time reading about dogs; they raise questions about the role of the reader, and highlight the way imagination u...

How do we get through the day when war is on our televisions, and who cares about that stuff when we've got cartoons to watch and pubs to go to? Carol Ann Duffy and George Bilgere help explore the matter in War Photographer and Pancake Dilemma . War is serious - so is it okay if one of these poems is actually funny? Find the poems here - https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/war-photograph...

Two stellar poems are being held up to the light for our exploration. In the Paul Farley poem a whole city disappears, but only for a moment. Whilst in the Louis MacNeice poem the concept of time is stretched out to an astronomical scale. Find the poems here https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495809-Star-Gazer-by-Louis-MacNeice https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-17537_LIVER...

What would life be without a bit of leisure, doing nothing, staring out the window? Butt wait, there's that nagging feeling you should be doing something 'useful'. In this episode we put two poems head to head in the Beauty V Duty battle. Who will win?! Find the poems here - Robert Frost = https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening WH Davies = htt...

I've been guilty in my time of taking my mother for advantage, let's face it, we all have. So let's make amends and let's celebrate the mothers in this world who do so much that goes unnoticed by the people they care for... until one day they show people they've still got it! In this episode. 'The Raincoat' by Ada Limón is put alongside 'Mother, Diving' by Andrew Forster - and the mother of all su...

Today Neil goes waterskiing across the past, future and present with 'Old Man' by Edward Thomas and 'Blueberries' by James Lasdun. Thoughts about our early memories, and also the question "Where will you be in twenty years?" are brought to the surface in these time-bending poems. Instagram - WaterskiingOnPoetry https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?igsh=MXVhcnJ5MX...

Leaving school and getting out into the big wide world - exciting or terrifying? Let's see what Carol Ann Duffy says in her poem 'In Mrs Tilscher's Class' and also what Seamus Heaney has to say in 'Death of a Naturalist', two terrific poems that might make us long for the past when life seemed a little easier. I'm on Instagram at WaterskiingonPoetry https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?ig...

Put 'Birds of Prey' by Claude McKay next to 'Hawk Roosting' by Ted Hughes and boy, do they sing to each other! Are we really reading poems about birds? Yes - and no! Let's see how how politics, dictators and the ruthless desire for power is really at the heart of these poems. I'm on Instagram at WaterskiingOnPoetry https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?igsh=MXVhcnJ5...

In this episode, Neil waves hello to WH Auden's 'Musée Des Beaux Arts' and considers how this poem still connects with the busy lives we lead. Also in the programme is 'Icarus', by the American poet George Bilgere, with a lesson to us all to look up from our phones. Im WaterskiingOnPoetry at Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?igsh=MXVhcnJ5MXI0aTNiNg==

Neil takes a look at two poems that feature daffodils, but what are the poems really about? With background information on Wordsworth's oh so famous poem' I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" Neil seeks a link beyond the yellow flower, with the Gillian Clarke poem 'Miracle on St David's Day'. Instagram at WaterskiingOnPoetry https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?igsh=MXVhcnJ5MXI0aTNiNg==

Encounters with animals can be startling, magical and memorable. Neil takes a look at the challenge presented in William Stafford's poem 'Traveling Through The Dark' and sees how the presentation of an encounter with an animal can differ quite remarkably by then looking at 'Roe Deer' by Ted Hughes. I'm on Instagram - WaterskiingOnPoetry https://www.instagram.com/waterskiingonpoetry?igsh=MXVhcnJ5MX...