The Poetry of My Oxford Year

It’s beautiful! The words, and Julia’s narration!

Great Addition to My Oxford Year

Great addition to have along with My Oxford Year. Julia does an outstanding job talking about the poets and background information. Entry point to Poetry can be daunting. This does a great job at introducing the excerpts and the full poems she used in the novel. And the poems she wrote for the book. The performance helps quite a big deal as well. Difference between seeing Shakespeare on a page then having someone speak it. Makes it come much more alive. Even ones Julia is not sure how she feels about like the William Morris one. Nice discussion about it, then we get 18 minutes or so of the reading. Full marks on the performances in this. Hopefully a lot of people check this out, along with My Oxford Year.

loved this quick listen

I loved this quick listen from Julia Whelan, a compilation of all the poetry used in her novel, My Oxford Year. Her introduction was especially touching as she shared about the anniversary of the novel’s publication as well as the anniversary of her father’s death. As she said, “grief, like love, tends to fade into nothing more than a memory of that grief or love,” I got a bit misty-eyed myself. When she commented that “Donne is the sexiest poet. I’m not taking feedback on this declaration. Thank you” I laughed aloud and nodded my head in agreement. Her reflections on time, loss, and grief were personal. Her admission of not really connecting that well with poetry but somehow finding the beauty in how it can succinctly convey what longer stories take chapters to was refreshing. I immensely enjoyed listening to each of the poems, getting short lessons on Victorian history and Oxford University, and most of all, hearing how each of these poems were chosen and tied into the story of Ella and Jamie in one of my most-loved books. This was almost, almost, like going down the rabbit hole of My Oxford Year. I say almost because I’d very much appreciate a full behind-the-scenes/rabbit hole as well, please and thank you. I’m so glad I purchased and listened!