Upper Street Madrid Podcast

Thoughts on language, literature, learning and culture

Episode 8 Belloc and Burton - two poems.

In this episode I compare two poems in the comic/surreal tradition of warning poems for children, one by Hilaire Belloc and one by Tim Burton. For more information about Upper Street's courses and classes, visit https://www.upper-street-madrid.com/

12-09
09:11

Episode 7 - I walk the Line. Phrases where careful actions are represented as careful motion

Latest episode of Upper Street Madrid Podcast. For more information about Upper Street's courses and classes, visit www.upper-street-madrid.com

11-18
06:14

Episode Six - Haiku in English

Haiku in English - including Kerouac, Ginsberg, Hass and John Cooper Clark. For more information about Upper Street's courses and classes, visit www.upper-street-madrid.com

11-09
08:12

Episode 5 - Words and nonsense, Professor Branestawm, Lewis Carroll and TS Eliot

Words can mean different things depending on how they are heard, seen or read. Norman Hunter, Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare and TS Eliot provide some examples.

10-21
07:02

Reflections on the poem 'To Any Reader' by Robert Louis Stevenson.

TO ANY READER As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear you. He intent Is all on his play-business bent. He does not hear; he will not look, Nor yet be lured out of this book. For, long ago, the truth to say, He has grown up and gone away, And it is but a child of air That lingers in the garden there.

10-12
05:56

Episode 3 - Poems, songs and topsy-turvy words

Some thoughts on the relationship poetry and song and a look at how and why expressions like goody-goody, topsy-turvy and hanky-panky are used.

09-23
10:15

Episode 2 - 'The Circuit' by Francisco Jimenez and meanings of the word 'spell'

In this week's podcast I'll talk about a short story by Francisco Jimenez, a Mexican American writer. The story is set in the early 1950's and describes the life of a family moving from farm to farm for work in the USA. I'll also be looking at the meanings of the word 'spell.'

09-16
08:46

Episode 1 - A matter of ABC

An Alphabet refrain and a poem by Julia Alvarez

09-03
11:34

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