by The Shepheardes Calender Podcast
A journey through the year with Edmund Spenser's poetic shepheards, and some real ones. Sponsored by the International Spenser Society. Listen on substack or: https://open.spotify.com/show/7bn8CejdOfIGqDXUn8kLjn https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/occasion-of-the-season/id1755609916 https://pca.st/ti30si7b <br/><br/><a href="https://occasionoftheseason.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">occasionoftheseason.substack.com</a>
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March 27, 2025
<p>The first of two bumper spring-specials. Buckle up for the season of increasing abundance! This month <a target="_blank" href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/centrestaff/cornish/">Archie Cornish</a> and I sat in the boot of my Citroen Berlingo in Ashdown Forest and talked through the March eclogue, to the puzzlement of passing dog-walkers. Archie’s reading of the poem emphasises the value of pastoral attention, the Greek roots of this poem, why Elizabethans were obsessed with bird-catching, and the importance of getting tangled up in nets. Read more of his thoughtfulness <a target="_blank" href="https://nightthoughtsac.substack.com/">here</a>! </p><p>I also had the huge pleasure of talking to Jill, Jon and John, the current senior members of the legendary <a target="_blank" href="https://www.thecopperfamily.com/">Copper family</a> of Sussex. Husband and wife team Jon and Jill open this episode with a snippet of the venerable old song, ‘Shepherd of the Downs’. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rewx0tzvdKQ">Here is some archival footage of a much earlier </a>recording. The three of them were incredibly gracious and kind to let me turn up in their kitchen and ask them questions about what it is like to have inherited–and spread around the world–the vast folk song collection that their father (in-law), Bob Copper, had himself inherited from his father, Jim, and his father, James, before him. </p><p>Finally, the episode is tied together by the voices of members of the <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/4BSjlnV6ZYrkMLPm55Wrfm">Deep Throat Choir </a>collective, who gathered into a kitchen on a March Sunday to sing for two members who are due to give birth very soon. They will sing us out to the words of a Cherokee proverb: “when you were born you cried, and the world rejoiced; live your life so that when you die the world cries, and you rejoice”. </p><p>Thank you to the Copper family – especially Jill, John and Jon – for their generosity and brilliance at telling humorous anecdotes, and the inspiring work that they have done to keep folk music alive. Thank you to Archie for a fascinating conversation. Thank you to the members of the Deep Throat collective for sharing their voices, to Mary and Michael for describing the woodcut, to Joseph Minden for being Thomalin, to NH Chaundler for our latest instalment of poetic responses to the calendar, to Ella Mahony for the art, and to <a target="_blank" href="http://Femi Oriogun-Williams">Femi Oriogun-Williams</a> for mixing, mastering and the original theme music.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://occasionoftheseason.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">occasionoftheseason.substack.com</a>
February 20, 2025
<p>This month I talked with <a target="_blank" href="https://fass.open.ac.uk/people/rdb29">Richard Danson Brown</a>, professor of English at the Open University. He illuminated the significance of complaint for the February eclogue, guided me through its anarchic rhythms, and made a spirited defence of Cuddie, the feisty young herdsman to Thenot’s sententious shepherd. I had the pleasure of reading this eclogue with Professor Valerie Minogue, who is also my grandmother, and an even more senior shepherd than Thenot. You’ll also hear a snippet of the long conversation we had after reading the poem.</p><p>Thank you to Ruth and Jason for describing the woodcut, to Richard Danson Brown for opening out the poem in so many great directions. Thank you to Valerie Minogue for giving voice to Thenot with the usual verve. Thank you to N.H. Chaundler for the tenth poetic response to the poem from rural Scotland. Thank you to the International Spenser Society for sponsoring this podcast, to Ella Mahony for the art, and to Femi Oriogun-Williams for making it sound great with mastering (and when it doesn’t sound great, that is because Femi’s been away and I have taken matters into my own hands).</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://occasionoftheseason.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">occasionoftheseason.substack.com</a>
January 24, 2025
<p>I talked through the January eclogue with <a target="_blank" href="https://english.dartmouth.edu/people/jessica-c-beckman">Jessica Beckman</a>, assistant professor of English at Dartmouth College, from whom I learned so much about Colin’s sympathies with nature and the material history of this strange book. If you stay to the end you’ll hear her magnificent reframing of the E.K. question. You’ll also hear a kind of cadenza on the relationship between Spenser’s calendar and Beyonce’s album, Cowboy Carter, from <a target="_blank" href="https://margokolendamason.com/">Margo Kolenda-Mason</a> at the University of Central Arkansas. You’ll also hear a poem—sort of about sheep—by Fernando Pessoa, beautifully read in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.casafernandopessoa.pt/pt/cfp/poesia-em-lingua-gestual-portuguesa/alberto-caeiro/sou-um-guardador-de-rebanhos">Portuguese</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.casafernandopessoa.pt/pt/cfp/visita/museu/poemas-e-textos-escolhidos/english/alberto-caeiro/im-keeper-sheep?eID=">English</a> by Lucas Naccache-Pope. This episode is honoured to host a song—Lemany—by the folk musician <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Jyc_VoEEk">Nick Hart,</a> whose voice you heard a teasing snippet of if you listened to the September episode. Although it seems to start out on a fine summer morning, the song—like Colin—looks back on that warmth from a much sadder vantage point. It’s the fourth track from his <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/08/nick-hart-nick-hart-sings-ten-english-folk-songs-review#:~:text=Review-,Nick%20Hart%3A%20Nick%20Hart%20Sings%20Ten%20English,Songs%20review%20%E2%80%93%20stark%20and%20sweet&text=Nick%20Hart%20is%20an,crackle%20warmly%20through%20his%20work.">acclaimed</a> album <a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1X2IuHkwva7QVX4XLjfKio">Nick Hart Sings Ten English Folk Songs</a>. Apart from all this and N.H. Chaundler’s regular installment, you’ll hear the austere January sounds of ice cracking and sliding across frozen ponds in mid Wales, and Hereford’s cathedral bells ringing out on a freezing January morning. A warning for your ears: Femi is away this month, and so I have done without expert mastering of sound levels; expect grittier transitions, and don’t be freaked out when you hear eery cracking noises: that’s ice in the podcast, not you, falling through the floor.</p><p>Thank you to Lucy and Tom for describing the woodcut, to Jessica Beckman for guiding us through this month’s eclogue, and to Joseph Minden for being Colin. Thank you to Nick Hart for sharing your version of ‘Lemany’ with us, to Margo Kolenda-Mason for sharing your thoughts, to Lucas for reading us Pessoa, and to N.H. Chaundler for your January reflection from the borderlands. Thank you Ella, James and Joe, my ice musicians. Thank you to the International Spenser Society for funding this podcast, to Ella Mahony for the artwork and to Femi Oriogun-Williams for making it sound good.</p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://occasionoftheseason.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">occasionoftheseason.substack.com</a>
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