If you’re still faffing about with mindfulness or meditation — don’t. Andrew Scott (Hot Priest, hot Irishman) has given a stirring (also: hot) reading of Derek Mahon’s redemptive poem, Everything Is Going To Be Alright. The reading — which was in aid of Men Against Cancer Ireland — was shared on Instagram this month and went viral.
Assuming you watched it on repeat all weekend long — losing yourself in his lilting delivery, making “alright” sound like the most enviable state in the world — it might have whet your appetite for some more verse.
Poetry is beautiful, and not just when the beautiful (also: hot) Andrew Scott is reading it. Your first port of call should be the Poetry Foundation (poetry.org), which is an online encyclopaedia of poetry, essays and collections along a theme (recent collections include motherhood, spring and “thank you”).
The foundation also produces a monthly magazine of modern poetry by authors across the world: browse its archival issues or subscribe to receive your own smart copy through the post. Another pit stop? The Poetry Society, which promotes education, runs its own competitions and also prints a beautiful magazine, The Poetry Review, a quarterly magazine with thick pages full of verse by emerging, established and extraordinary poets (poetrysociety.org.uk).
The National Poetry Library is usually a hushed, cerebral oasis in the Southbank Centre — remember the smell of books! — but it’s currently closed while we weather the storm. For now, there’s always online: its poetry librarians are curating free collections to discover on its website. The highlight though is its library of lost quotes: if you’ve got a line stuck in your head but can’t remember the rest of the poem, send the snippet to its team and they’ll do their best to help. Its newsletter is a joy, too (nationalpoetrylibrary.org.uk).
The New Yorker’s poetry podcast invites very erudite poets on to dissect their own poetry and that of others with the mellifluous poetry editor Kevin Young (newyorker.com). Audio Poem of the Day does what it says on the tin: an actor reads a different poem aloud every day.
