Shadowing Practice: The 7 Poems that Haunt Me the Most - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello, today I want to talk about poetry, particularly the poems that have haunted me across the years.
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So I'm going to recommend some good poems and I hope you read them.
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I want to kick off with a poem by Emily Dickinson
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and this one really does haunt me and it makes me believe in something more supernatural, something that perhaps we cannot see.
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Now you might know if you've listened to a lot of my stuff, if you've listened to the Hardcore Literature podcast,
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that one of my critical heroes is the late great Harold Bloom.
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I see what i'm doing with explicating great literature helping people understand the great books
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i see what i'm doing as being very much in the same vein as harold bloom
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and his tradition his his tradition of interpretation
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i'm carrying on what he uh also carried on from those who came before him
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and so this is really really spooky because harold bloom died on the 14th of october 2019
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and I read 14th of October it was gone midnight I read a poem by Emily Dickinson
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and I believe though I've not seen this anywhere I believe
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this might have been one of Bloom's favorites we do know
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that he loved Emily Dickinson along with Walt Whitman
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he held Dickinson up as part of the American Sublime one
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of the great modern American poets Dickinson is one of the most difficult poets to understand
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and i was going through a tough time
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when i stumbled across this poem i opened the complete works of emily dickinson at a random page
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and i came across this little poem which is short enough to quote here
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so i'm going to quote it now had this one day not been
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or could it cease to be how smitten how superfluous were
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every other day less love should value less what loss would value more had it the stricken privilege
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it cherishes before they have to read
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that 10 20 30 times before you even somewhat understand it
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but i think
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that i read this perhaps at the moment where one of my critical heroes his soul departed from the earth
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and at that moment he passed on the literary the critical torch to me um
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and i know that sounds kooky i know
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that sounds crazy a lot of people will say that's that's not possible maybe not
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but i think it's too coincidental anyway let's go into another poem
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now the next poem i would like to recommend you is tithonus by tennyson he wrote this in 1833
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and for a very long time i preferred ulysses it little prophets
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that an idle king by this still hearth among these barren crags matched with an aged wife i meet
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and dull unequal laws unto a savage race
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but Tithonus I've come to really love
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and be haunted by Tithonus you might even know the beginning of Tithonus the woods decay the woods decay
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and fall the vapors weep their burthen to the ground man comes
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and tills the field and lies beneath
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and after many as summer dies the swan me only cruel immortality consumes
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and listen to this line i wither slowly in thine arms
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if you know anything about mythology you'll know that tithonus was granted immortality
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but not eternal youth painful
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and um i think tennyson actually wrote this as a sort of Virgilian poem to his late friend Hallam.
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Most of Tennyson's poems are filled, imbued with grief.
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Grief for Hallam, who died before his time.
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Hallam, who really promoted Tennyson, built him up, encouraged him, filled him with confidence about his poetic technique.
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Tennyson was consumed by grief his entire life
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and it produced some really affecting poems and I would ask you to read Tithonus.
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It's not that long and it should send shivers up your spine.
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Here at the quiet limit of the world a white -haired
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shadow roaming like a dream the ever -silent spaces of the east
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Far -folded mists and gleaming halls of morn
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The next poem I want to recommend is by Yeats
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It's called The Lake Isle of Innisfree It's a popular one Yeats in his lifetime knew
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that this was the poem people most wanted to hear him recite
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Indeed you can find the poet himself reciting
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The Lake Isle of Innisfree And it doesn't sound like what you might expect
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Because Yeats had his own theories and philosophies about how poetry should be read aloud and what it should sound like.
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But the reason the Lake Isle of Innisfree affects me
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so much is because it's indelibly wrapped up with a very specific mournful time in my life
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when my aunt and godmother sadly passed away.
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I gave the eulogy at her funeral and I remember giving a...
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bible quote a bible verse reading from a passage
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that talked about morning's veil and at the same time i was reading yeats
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and he talks about dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings
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and they sort of became entwined together it's a poem that is strongly
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wrapped up with the color purple and a really specific mood
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when i read it now i think about my longing to get away from the city
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and to go somewhere quiet quiet save for the lapping of a lake
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and some crickets singing again it's a short poem
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and it's really nice
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so i'm just going to read it to you it's the lake isle of innisfree by yeats i will arise
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and go now and go to innisfree
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and a small cabin build there of clay
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and wattles made nine bean rows will i have there a hive for the honey -bee, and live alone in the bee -loud glade.
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And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
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dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.
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There midnight's all a -glimmer, and noon a purple glow, and evening full of the Lynette's wings.
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I will arise and go now for always night and day.
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I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore.
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While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
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Now for a long time I didn't realize what this noon purple glow was,
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I thought that was just a beautiful way of depicting a sunset in the poem.
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But if you listen to Yeats, read it.
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There's one of his readings where he explicates and he says that Innisfree basically means like heather field or something like that.
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So obviously it's the fields of heather and I think that's beautiful as well.
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Yeats is great.
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If you want more recommendations for Yeats, I'd be more than happy to give them to you.
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He's got some really lovely poems.
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He's a poet working in the same tradition as William Blake, another affecting difficult but rewarding poet so
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so far we've had Dickinson we've had Yeats and we've had Tennyson
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and I want to throw another Shelley a romantic poet into the mix
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and I would highly recommend if you like any of these poems
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or you'd like to explore these poets further check out the pocket everyman series
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they're beautiful little collectible gorgeous little hardback volumes
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that you can fit easily in your pocket
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I'll put a link in the description below let's get into Shelley
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he wrote a poem called ode to the west wind quite a famous one
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and he wrote that in the autumn of 1819 near the Arno River which is near
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Florence and there was a real tumultuous storm rain and hail
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and the winds were kicking up
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and he wrote this wonderful poem ode to the west wind I'm going to read you a couple of selections
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but implore you to read the whole thing yourself oh wild
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west wind thou breath of autumn's being thou from whose unseen
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presence the leaves dead are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing yellow
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and black and pale
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and hectic red pestilence stricken multitudes oh thou who chariotest to
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their dark wintry beds the winged seeds where they lie cold and low, each like a corpse within its grave,
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until thine azure sister of the spring shall blow, her clarion over the dreamy earth, and fill, driving sweet buds like flocks to feeding air,
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with living hues and odours plain and hill, wild spirit which art moving everywhere,
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destroyer and preserver, here, oh, here.
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And you'll forgive me, I can't resist, I'm going to read the next stanza.
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Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
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Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning there are spread
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On the blue surface of thine airy surge.
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I'm going to go on a little bit more.
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Thou for whose path the Atlantic's level powers cleave themselves into chasms
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while far below the sea blooms and the oozy woods
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which wear the sapless foliage of the ocean know thy voice
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and suddenly grow gray with fear and tremble and despoil themselves oh here
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and as Shelley goes on this is if I were a dead leaf
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and he starts to hypothesize about
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that he asks this west wind to make him a liar through
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which he can communicate with this godly powerful sublime presence
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and motivation and force and this is a sublime poem
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and what is sublime well if we're going off the back of Edmund Burke's
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definition and opinion sublime is different from beautiful beautiful is somewhat dainty pretty delicate small sublime is
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that which inspires awe through its power a tiger
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and blake wrote about a tiger a tiger is sublime
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because it can kill you inspires fear it's powerful um what else
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if we're talking about the romantic still coleridge the rhyme of
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the ancient mariner yeah these storm blasts a storm is sublime
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if we're going back to shelly and going to mont blanc
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that is sublime this huge mountain that inspires awe and grandeur
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and my favorite line from ode to a west wind is
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drive my dead thoughts over the universe like withered leaves to quicken a new birth
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and he ends on a very very famous line
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that everybody knows even if you don't read poetry he says oh wind
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if winter comes can spring be far behind and
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if you enjoy ode to a west wind i would highly recommend that you pick up Shelley's incomplete death poem,
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his Dante -esque poem written in Teresarima called The Triumph of Life.
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And if that's not enough, check out Prometheus Unbound.
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Now the next poet is one who Shelley actually inspired.
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Shelley inspired a lot of poets.
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This poet, by the way, is Robert Browning.
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The thing about Shelley is academics today, and actually since he was around, have scorned him as though he hasn't got any value.
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They'll try to damn his aesthetic sensibilities
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and call it even though they have an actual issue with his moral sensibilities we can talk about Shelley's life
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and all that at some point if you're interested it is interesting
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but don't get caught up in all that Shelley is a sensitive soul
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and he has rendered some of those beautiful affecting
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and inspirational poetry in all of history
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and one poet who he went on to affect Robert Browning is a very difficult poet
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and English students today don't read Robert Browning, unless you've got a good teacher or a good tutor who pushes you towards Browning a little bit.
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And what you'll find with Browning is you'll either hate him or you'll love him, okay?
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So if you like grotesque, like the poetry and even the prose, if you like writing of the grotesque
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Victorian grotesque, you'll like Robert Browning.
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If you like dramatic monologues, you'll like Browning.
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He is not as psychologically compelling as Shakespeare.
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His dramatic monologues are infused with his own thoughts
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but he's a master and
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if you like him you'll you won't just like him you'll love him
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and he's very very difficult so persevere
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and one of the most difficult poems
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i've ever come across is robert browning's child roland to the dark tower came the story goes
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that browning had a nightmare and then wrote this poem
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which was a recall of nightmare um in one day something like
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that coleridge did a similar thing with kubala calm where he woke up from an opium dream
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and then noted down his his dream but it's it is a nightmare
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and it's the sort of nightmare where there is no progression
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and you can't trust anything
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that you're being told uh it's also deeply metaphorical it's this sort of knight's journey uh through
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and i think it's symbolic
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if you read it in a freudian sense um
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it is symbolic of robert browning's own journey his own poetic journey
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and his journey to go beyond his precursors his poetic precursors like Shelley
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but it's a really difficult poem it's really ugly I wouldn't say
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it's a it's a beautiful poem here's a passage from the 30th stanza burningly
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it came on me all at once
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this was the place those two hills on the right crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight
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while to the left a tall scout mountain dunce dotard a
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dozing at the very nonce after a life spent training for the sight what in the midst lay
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but the tower itself the round squat turret blind as the
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fool's heart built of brown stone without counterpart in the whole
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world the tempest's mocking elf points to the shipment thus the unseen shelf he strikes on
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only when the timbers start this is the final stanza of
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that poem very resonant stanza especially if you've gone through the whole thing and you feel the temporal stickiness, I suppose you could call it,
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the sense of time almost not passing, the sense of landscape almost not passing.
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This is the last stanza of that really difficult poem.
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There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met to view the last of me, a living frame for one more picture.
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In a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all
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and yet dauntless the slughorn to my lips I set and blew child Roland to the dark tower game.
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Now let's talk Keats.
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If you get on with Keats, if you like Keats, then you're getting on with my aesthetic sensibilities.
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If you don't like Keats, I don't understand.
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I don't understand how anyone can not like Keats.
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Keats is.. extraordinarily affecting his designs his artifices are phenomenally beautiful
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i actually cannot believe how young keats was he died well before his time
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he died in his late 20s um and he he's
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so masterful and i'll read a poem that makes me literally cry
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and then i'll find out that keats was like 24
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or something when he wrote the poem
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but age doesn't really define anything does it its suffering
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and its experience and its life lived
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and keats we know had a lot of trauma with his
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brother dying different people dying getting tuberculosis scorned in love keats lived a full life in his short time
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and it does make me sad sometimes to think
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that the world doesn't have all the poems
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that they might have he was on the cusp of writing some contenders for
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milton's paradise lost had he just lived another 10 20 years
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but i think this was shakespeare as well i think
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this was every great poet who didn't get beyond his 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s even um
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but that's okay we have plenty to choose from i would implore
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you to read as much keats as you can get your
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hands on it was really difficult to pick one poem do i pick to autumn season of mists
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and mellow fruitfulness close bosom friend of the maturing sun do i choose ode to a nightingale my heart aches
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and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as though of hemlock i had drunk
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or do i choose ode on a grecian urn thou still unravished bride of quietness thou foster child of silence
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and slow time sylvan historian no if i have to choose one that i and oh no this is too hard
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Let's just say, for now, which will probably change by the end of the day, I choose John Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci.
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Oh, what can ail thee, knight at arms, alone and palely loitering?
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The sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.
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Now imagine that you fall in love with a fairy, you fall in love with a magical being from beyond the netherworld,
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from the dream world you fall in love with her you eat the fruit of the fairy lands
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and then you are damned to return to mortality think about how much pain you would be in
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and that's la belle d 'amson's mercy
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and next I should probably mention John Dunne's a nocturnal upon st. Lucie's day being the shortest day
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I mentioned this because this is the poem that enraptured me
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that sort of broke me into poetry in fact there's a specific line
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and everybody who loves poetry without fail has one specific line
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or phrase or a part of a poem
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that they thought wow i didn't realize language could do that
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and for me it comes in a nocturnal upon saint lucy's day
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and it is the it's the part where dunn says study me
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then you who shall love us be at the next world
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that is at the next spring for i am every dead thing it was
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that for i am every dead thing and i know
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that might not sound like much it's not hugely resonant um
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but i thought it was at the time i must have been 12 13 around
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that time maybe 14 for i am every dead thing
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and i thought wow typical hormonal teacher i thought wow you can say
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that in poetry and not only can you say that
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but i felt the sincerity of don um
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if you want to get further into don
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i would recommend after reading a handful of his poems like the ecstasy
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and the flea he was a metaphysical poet by the way and he has some very interesting conceptual things,
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you might want to move on to his sermons.
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I studied his sermons along with Lancelot Andrew's sermons at university my second year at Oxford, and he does some very,
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very cool things with biblical exegesis, deep diving into scripture.
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And I would particularly recommend his sermon on the passage, Jesus wept, the shortest part, the shortest scripture in the Bible,
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two words jesus wept and he spins it out into the most phenomenal lecture
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or sermon um really really cool stuff
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so john dunn let's move on to the last poet
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that i want to recommend or the last poem
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that haunts me has to be shakespeare doesn't it now it's actually impossible to choose one part of shakespeare
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that i want to share with you do you pick something from one of his plays something
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that a character said a soliloquy
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or do you pick one of his many poems his sonnets alone are endlessly ripe and your favourites will change over time.
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I issued a call, a homework reading assignment for you all listening to the podcast
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and hopefully those signing on to the book club forthcoming, details coming soon on that one,
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to read all of Shakespeare's sonnets in sequence and then collect and rank your favourites.
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You'll know
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that this is one of my favourites, it's sonnet 121 tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
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when not to be receives reproach of being and the just pleasure lost which is so deemed not by our feeling,
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but by others' seeing.
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For why should others' false, adulterate eyes give salutation to my sportive blood?
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Or are my frailties, why are frailer spies, which in their wills count bad what I think good?
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No, I am that I am, and they that level at my abuses reckon up their own.
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I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel,
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by their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown unless this general evil they maintain all men are bad
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and in their badness reign if you want to go
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and deep dive with me on the sonnets it will be part of the book club
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when we kick it off we're reading
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Anna Karenina together over the long term
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and we're also doing the first 17 sonnets the procreation sequence from February onwards
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so details in the link below
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if you sign up to the anna book club then you can get straight in
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when it drops but let me know what poems haunt you what poems or lines from poems pulled you into
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appreciating poetry what poets do you recommend let me know and
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if you enjoyed this video i'd really appreciate it
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if you hit the like button and subscribe and i'll keep making more have a Lovely day and happy reading.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The 7 Poems that Haunt Me the Most”. This video has 282 sentences and 3568 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:12. The speaker talks at a natural 168 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 74% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| poem noun | /ˈpoʊ.əm/ | A literary piece written in verse. |
| poet noun | /ˈpoʊ.ət/ | A person who writes poems. |
| poetry noun | /ˈpoʊ.ə.tɹi/ | Literature composed in verse or language exhibiting conscious attention to patterns and rhythm. |
| sermon noun | /ˈsɝ.mən/ | Religious discourse; a written or spoken address on a religious or moral matter. |
| nightmare noun | /ˈnaɪt.mɛɚ/ | A very unpleasant or frightening dream. |
| aisle noun | /aɪ̯l/ | A wing of a building, notably in a church separated from the nave proper by piers. |
| haunt verb | /hɔnt/ | To inhabit or to visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts). |
| purple noun | /ˈpɝ.pl̩/ | A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta. |
| tiger noun | /ˈtaɪɡə/ | Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia. |
| passage noun | /ˈpæsɪd͡ʒ/ | A paragraph or section of text or music with particular meaning. |
| grief noun | /ɡɹiːf/ | Suffering, hardship. |
| inspire verb | /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ | To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by… |
| bloom noun | /blum/ | A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud. |
| poetic adjective | /poʊˈɛtɪk/ | Relating to poetry. |
| pocket noun | /ˈpɑ.kɪt/ | A bag stitched to an item of clothing, used for carrying small items. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| get on with verb | To proceed with; to begin or continue, especially after an interruption. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| go off verb | To explode. |
| kick up verb | To rear back; to become more active or restless; to speed up. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you know anything about mythology you'll know · If you like dramatic monologues, you'll like · if you like him you'll you |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be haunted · was granted · are filled |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have haunted · you've listened · I've not seen |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | those who came · poem which is · River which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 64 contractions and reduced forms, such as you'll, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: aesthetic /ɛsˈθɛ.tɪk/, heather /ˈhɛðɚ/, beneath /bɪˈniːθ/, wither /ˈwɪðɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, sheet /ʃit/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/, shore /ʃɔɹ/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: literary /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/, interpretation /ɪnˌtɜːpɹəˈteɪʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like poem, poet, poetry.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.