Introduction
'A poem can be a story, a poem can be a song, a poem can be a dance, a poem can be a nursery rhyme, a poem can be something that makes you laugh, a poem can be something that makes you cry and a really good poem might do all of those things at once!'
Liz Lochhead - Passwords 1998
This programme presents five poems from the NEAB GCSE Poetry Anthology. Each poem is introduced by Simon Armitage and read either by the poet or by an actor. The poems are in a variety of styles and from different periods; they all deal in different ways with the themes of love, sex and relationships. The poems are enjoyable in themselves; and there are some interesting similarities and differences between them, both in their styles and in the way they view their subjects. 'One Flesh' and 'To His Coy Mistress' are both 'literary' poems - that is, written for the page - but while Marvell's poem deals with youthful, urgent passion, Jennings writes about the cooling relationship between her elderly parents. Both 'i wanna be yours' and 'Rapunzstiltskin' are modern poems in which the words on the page seem only a blueprint for a performance in front of a live audience. The same is true of the eighteenth-century poem 'The Beggar Woman'.
© 2000 Channel Four Television Corporation
