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Poetry Challenges

David Morley, Director of the Warwick Writing Programme, leads you through a series of poetry podcast challenges, exploring the wonderful word-world of poetry, sharing some of his own poems and challenging you to find the poet within you.

The challenges will be published on the Warwick Challenges blog and on the University Twitter account (@warwickuni). To be the first to hear about each new challenge, follow the University of Warwick on Twitter and don't forget to use the #warwickchallenges hashtag.

There is space on the Warwick Challenges blog for people to share their responses to the poetry challenges where others will be able to appreciate them and Professor Morley will make an appearance from time to time.

What is the Secret of Poetry?

10:05, Fri 30 Apr 2010

Poetry Challenge 1 - Professor David Morley welcomes you to the first Poetry Challenge "in which we plunge into the woods of poetry weaving magical tales behind us, and leave before dawn with our poems gathered in our arms."

(MP3 format, 7.4 MB)

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Sky-Candles and Whale-Roads

08:59, Fri 7 May 2010

Poetry Challenge 2 - Professor David Morley presents the second Poetry Challenge "in which we light up language and warm our minds before a fire of words." This episode is all about magical ways to shape language and poems with a challenge to create some kennings and use them in short poems or haiku.

(MP3 format, 7.5 MB)

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Mirrors to Nature

17:04, Thu 13 May 2010

Poetry Challenge 3 - Professor David Morley presents the third Poetry Challenge "in which we begin listening more clearly to the poet in ourselves." In this episode Prof Morley asks "Where is the truth of the self? Is it located in the observer or the observed, or in the act of observation or the act of observing?".

(MP3 format, 7.5 MB)

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What is Important is More Important than the Important

09:52, Fri 21 May 2010

Professor David Morley presents the fourth Poetry Challenge "in which we plunge into the woods of poetry, make up magical tales and songs, and leave before dawn with our poems in baskets." This episode is about creating poems that live and making our own small truths.

(MP3 format, 6.1 MB)

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The Inner Truth of Tomatoes

09:59, Fri 28 May 2010

Professor David Morley presents the fifth Poetry Challenge "in which we explore the wonderful word-world of poetry." This episode is about finding subjects for your poems. Prof Morley challenges you to "break out of the usual poetic subjects and make something new from something that is defiantly and wonderfully unpoetic".

(MP3 format, 6.0 MB)

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The Water Measurer

09:25, Fri 4 Jun 2010

Professor David Morley presents the sixth Poetry Challenge "in which we splash about in nouns before going deeper and learning to swim with verbs". This episode is about finding forms and shapes for your poems and challenges you to explore pantoums, sonnets and villanelles.

(MP3 format, 6.9 MB)

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Playing Tennis with the Nets Down

11:05, Fri 11 Jun 2010

Professor David Morley presents the seventh Poetry Challenge "in which we play with language and make it into toys and little machines called poems". This episode is about finding ways to create free verse without ignoring the fact that free verse is also a form of poetry. Prof Morley challenges you to write two poems in free verse using repeated phrases to pattern your poem: "I wish that..." and "I curse you with...".

(MP3 format, 4.3 MB)

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Finger Counting in the Dark

09:31, Fri 18 Jun 2010

Professor David Morley presents the eighth Poetry Challenge "in which we play, very seriously, with language". This episode is a two for the price of one podcast about writing poems using syllabics and subverting forms of poetry. Prof Morley challenges you with an exercise in precise patterning and also to write a sequence of Dark Side Limericks, the kind of limericks Darth Vader might write between battles.

(MP3 format, 6.0 MB)

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On Titles, Sequences and Collections

10:55, Fri 25 Jun 2010

Professor David Morley presents the ninth Poetry Challenge in which we explore titles, sequences and collections. "The title is a door for the reader to open, or a little window through which they peer at the interior, an intrigue making them question whether they should enter or take part." Prof Morley's first challenge for you in this podcast is to make up a one-word poem and then to give it a title.

(MP3 format, 6.0 MB)

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Volcano and Diamonds

10:46, Fri 2 Jul 2010

Professor David Morley presents the tenth Poetry Challenge called Volcano and Diamonds. This episode is "about you becoming a kind of poetry volcano blasting out lots of rubbish but also a few diamonds". Prof Morley challenges you to a drastic exercise in deletion and discrimination.

(MP3 format, 8.3 MB)

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Poetry's Reasons

08:44, Fri 9 Jul 2010

Professor David Morley presents the last podcast in our series of Poetry Challenges. This episode is called Poetry's Reasons and it's about how and why we write poems. Prof Morley challenges you with two small exercises that attempt to remind the writer how individual and strange our relationship with words and language is, and how a writer's personal reading, listening and writing are intimately linked within any poem.

(MP3 format, 8.7 MB)

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