A Bird in Bishopswood by John Tickhill
Words in the Air
English - November 09, 2023 05:00 - 3 minutes - 3.09 MB - ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsDrama Fiction Arts Performing Arts poetry spoken word literature performance art reading sound design poems sonic shelterinpoems shelterinpoetry Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Read by Gary Muller
"A Bird in Bishopswood" is a short, 41-line poem written in Middle English alliterative verse in the late fourteenth century.
The poem was written in 1395 by English poet John Tickhill, who was a rent collector at St. Paul's Cathedral.
The poem is about a narrator who finds himself out of tune with the season of "the merry month of May". The narrator has spent Lent in melancholia and also shares their observations and interpretations of the bird's actions, the changing nature and how it makes them feel. Also, there is an expression of longing towards the bird, expressed through a desire to keep it caged until winter, a possible metaphor for wanting to hold onto the beauty and vitality of spring as long as possible.
Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman