The Poem

Barber: Material

In this course the poet and novelist Ros Barber discusses her poem ‘Material’, one of the set poems in the ‘Poems of the Decade’ cluster for Edexcel A Level English Literature. In the first lecture, she describes how she came to write the poem, as well as the reading the poem in full. After that, in the second and third lectures, she provides a close analysis of the poem, pointing out aspects of language and structure, before a short final lecture in which she offers her final thoughts about the poem, including the multiple resonances of the word ‘material’.

The Poem

In this lecture, Ros talks about her relationship with her mother, how she came to write poetry in general, and how she came to write ‘Material’ in particular. She then reads the poem in full.