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May 08

May's programs are shaped around the theme of faith.

Robert Browning's great diatribe The Lost Leader (May 8) bemoans the loss of faith in a cause, while Jenny Jospeh's The Road from Glastonbury (on the same day) explores how to live in a post-religious age.

How to approach a God who is now mythical but still ever-present in the imagination is the subject of the two poems on May 9 by the current Library of Congress Poet Laureate Charles Simic. while two English Poets Laureate, John Betjeman and Andrew Motion explore the difficulties of resisting the metaphysical on the approach of death.

Karl Shapiro (May 14) and Erich Fried (May 2) discuss the abandonment of left-wing idealism by the fellow-travellers of the reform movement. While Joseph Brodsky in his long poem Nunc Dmittis (May 28) describes with a mood of celebration the feeling of certain proof in belief.

Enjoy ... and let's hope our faith in the weather may finally bring on Spring!

May

1	Philip Levine	American	What Work Is
2	Ruth Fainlight	American	Handbag The Tree Surgeon
5	Erich Fried	Austrian	Karl Marx 1983
6	Erich Fried Roy Fuller	Austrian English	Reasons (for not giving up) Freud’s Case Histories
7	Robert Browning Jenny Joseph	English English	The Lost Leader The Road from Glastonbury
8	Ruth Padel Mona van Duyn	English American	Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool End of May
9	Izet Sarajlic Charles Simic	Serbian American	Luck in Sarajevo Psalm To the One Upstairs
12	W H Auden Claudia Alegria	English El Savadoran	Edward Lear Accounting Rain
13	Kathleen Jamie	Scottish	The Tay Moses The Tree House
14	Karl Shapiro Naum Korzhavin	American Russian	Death of Emma Goldman Imitation of Monsieur Béranger
15	Emily Dickinson Billy Collins	American American	Because I Could not Stop for Death Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes
16	Adrienne Rich	American	What Kind of Times Are These Rusted Legacy
19	John Betjeman Andrew Motion	English English	Inevitable One Who Disappeared
20	Michèle Roberts	English	The Day the Wall Came Down
21	Robert Creeley	American	A Form of Woman Age
22	Thomas Warton Cecil Day Lewis	English English	To the River Lodon The Album
23	Jane Kenyon	American	Happiness Twilight: After Haying
26	Simon Armitage	English	The Dead Sea Poems The Jay
27	Michael Donaghy	Irish/American	Cadenza Pentecost
28	Joseph Brodsky	Russian	Nunc Dmittis
29	Theodore Roethke	American	The Dream Child on Top of a Greenhouse
30	Countee Cullen Michèle Roberts	American English	The Loss of Love Christina Rossetti Writes a Memo

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