The Power of Words

There have been times here when I have bemoaned about the lack of anything decent on television worth watching. Apart from the news there are times when my TV is not switched on at all, and even then I may skip the television news as the radio has provided better coverage. The radio often has better pictures too. However on Sunday I had the rare situation of four programmes that I wanted to watch, over three channels (here I only have five channels to chose from) all on at the same time. Nor do I have a video recorder or any device for recording television, I may join the twentieth century one day. And yes I do mean the last century!

Two of the programmes were dramas, but two were documentaries. One on Natural History and one on Anthropology. The solution came in the shape of technology and the I player. As three of the programmes were on the BBC I was able to watch them there.

It has been another aspect of the television out put that has caught my eye though. The BBC has just started a poetry season. I first saw that it was coming when the BBC started running trailers for this where well know people (well know well to others but not to me) reciting poems in response to normal questions. They are the best trailers I have seen for years.

I do regularly listen to a radio programme of poetry readings, Poetry Please, and this year it starts its thirtieth year. It has introduced me to many poems that were new to me and reawakened my interest in poetry.

When I was a child poetry was not part of my cultural diet, and even at school the snobbery from the teachers seemed aimed more at stopping people from enjoying poetry. In the 1970s I discovered via Pam Ayers that there was poetry that could be enjoyed. Yet my teachers at school were dismissive of her work. Hey she is the best selling living poet... last laughs is a phrase that is coming to my mind. If a poem sparks an emotional reaction then it has done its job, and the work of Pam Ayers opened my mind to the power of words.

As I have mentioned here before, I have dyslexia. Note that I don't say that I suffer from it as its the poor buggers that have to try and read my ramblings. But the point is that, had my teachers encouraged me to read then rather than dismiss my choice of reading material as rubbish, perhaps I could have discovered the tools that I now use to cope with the dyslexia. Equally, I have also mentioned that I had a stammer when I was younger. I frequently found that by expanding my vocabulary I was able to find alternative words to the ones I was stumbling over.

While I am on the subject of talking, in response to one of my readers who has heard my voice on video, as a Wood Mouse I have to use Helium to deepen my voice, in the was that humans make their voices high pitched.

While talking of poetry, here is a poem on video for you all.