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Looking Back on Childhood

Poets and writers reflect on childhood experiences, featuring texts by Alice Oswald, James Baldwin and William Wordsworth. Readings by Rebecca Lacey and Abraham Popoola.

Poets and writers reflect on their childhoods. With readings by Rebecca Lacey and Abraham Popoola.

What was it like to be a child? What was expected, and what did we wish for? What experiences in the present prompt us to remember? This episode of Words and Music explores how it feels to look back on different stages of childhood.

In a Louis MacNeice poem, the smell of a particular brand of soap is enough to inspire a flood of involuntary memories; while Jackie Kay is watching on the shore as the girl she was walks 鈥渙ut to sea [...] further and further away.鈥� There is part of the poet Alice Oswald that has not yet left her childhood hiding place, inside a laurel bush 鈥渋n Berkshire somewhere.鈥� Jan Morris鈥檚 memoir reflects on how it felt to be 鈥渂orn into the wrong body.鈥�

Youth was a wandered-through, clambered-over landscape for the nature poet Wordsworth; for Adrienne Rich, childhood was a time when knowledge was 鈥減ure鈥�, even 鈥減leasurable鈥�, contained in encyclopedias, lacking the contradictions and complications of the adult world. Seamus Heaney invokes the imaginative play of siblings at home whose sofa is transformed into a train. Driving in his car listening to Sly and the Family Stone, the poet A. Van Jordan is pulled over by the police. The encounter prompts a lyrical meditation on music, manhood and racism. The music in this episode comes from Charles Ives, Georges Bizet and Stevie Wonder.

Readings:
Alice Oswald - Aside
Melissa Stein - Anthem
Seamus Heaney - A Sofa In The Forties
William Wordsworth - The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time
Adrienne Rich - From Morning-Glory to Petersburg
James Baldwin - Sonny鈥檚 Blues
Laurie Lee - Cider With Rosie
A. Van Jordan - Que Sera Sera (漏 2007 by A. Van Jordan, in arrangement with W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
Louis MacNeice - Soap Suds
Thomas Hood - Past and Present
Jan Morris - Conundrum
D.H. Lawrence - Piano
Jackie Kay - The Past

Produced by Phil Smith
A Reduced Listening production for 大象传媒 Radio 3.

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Fri 30 Dec 2022 18:15
大象传媒 Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • Alice Oswald

    Aside read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:03

    Franz Waxman

    Promenade (Four Scenes from Childhood)

    Performer: Marianne Thorsen. Performer: Ian Brown.
  • 00:06

    Georges Bizet

    Berceuse: La Poupee (Jeux d'Enfants)

    Orchestra: Orquesta Filarm贸nica de la Ciudad de M茅xico. Conductor: Enrique B谩tiz.

  • Melissa Stein

    Anthem read by Abraham Popoola

  • 00:09

    Stevie Wonder

    I Wish

  • Seamus Heaney

    A Sofa In The Forties, I: read by Rebecca Lacey

  • Seamus Heaney

    A Sofa In The Forties, II: read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:13

    Oct谩vio Pinto

    Corre Corre (Scenas Infantis)

    Ensemble: Duo Turgeon.

  • Seamus Heaney

    A Sofa In The Forties, III: read by Rebecca Lacey

  • Seamus Heaney

    A Sofa In The Forties, IV: read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:15

    Oct谩vio Pinto

    Dorme Nene (Scenas Infantis)

    Ensemble: Duo Turgeon.
  • 00:16

    Oct谩vio Pinto

    Salta Salta (Scenas Infantis)

    Ensemble: Duo Turgeon.

  • William Wordsworth

    The Prelude: Book 1: Childhood and School-time read by Abraham Popoola

  • 00:17

    Edward Elgar

    Moths and Butterflies (The Wand of Youth, Suite No.2)

    Orchestra: Ulster Orchestra. Conductor: Bryden Thomson.
  • 00:21

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Variations on "Ah, Vous Dirai-je, Maman", K.265

    Performer: Lang Lang.

  • Adrienne Rich

    From Morning Glory to Petersburg read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:27

    Doris Day

    Que Sera, Sera

  • 00:29

    Ella Fitzgerald

    Summertime

  • James Baldwin

    Sonny's Blues read by Abraham Popoola

  • 00:36

    Charles Ives

    Children's Day (Symphony No.3: The Camp Meeting)

    Orchestra: New York Philharmonic. Conductor: Leonard Bernstein.

  • Laurie Lee

    Cider With Rosie read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:46

    Pete Atkin

    Touch has a Memory

  • A. Van Jordan

    Que Sera Sera read by Abraham Popoola

  • 00:54

    Lea Bertucci

    Wind Piece

  • Louis MacNeice

    Soap Suds read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 00:56

    Sly & the Family Stone

    Que Sera, Sera

  • Thomas Hood

    Past and Present read by Rebecca Lacey and Abraham Popoola

  • 00:59

    Dmitry Shostakovich

    String Quartet no.1, Op.49 (3rd mvt: Allegro molto)

    Ensemble: St. Petersburg String Quartet.
  • 01:02

    Leopold Mozart

    Toy Symphony (2nd mvt: Menuetto)

    Orchestra: Toronto Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Kevin Mallon.

  • Jan Morris

    Conundrum read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 01:06

    Jean Sibelius

    Valse Triste, Op.44 no.1

    Performer: Leif Ove Andsnes.

  • D.H. Lawrence

    Piano read by Abraham Popoola

  • Jackie Kay

    The Past read by Rebecca Lacey

  • 01:12

    Cosmo Sheldrake

    I Threw a Rock into the Sea

Broadcasts

  • Sun 12 Jul 2020 17:30
    大象传媒 Radio 3
  • Fri 30 Dec 2022 18:15
    大象传媒 Radio 3

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