The concept of the Maestro series came as a lovely antidote to post Christmas blues. I chose to follow the Carol Anne Duffy Poetry Course and was pleasantly surprised, and surprised myself in taking notes as encouraged to do and writing short verses at each injuncture, about early memories, people, accents, fruit, the senses and so on. It felt productive and each lesson seemed to induce a sharpening of poetic perception and formulation. Where I said that I was pleasantly surprised I should not have been because the trailer was the spur to taking this course and it turned out just as expected. The mixture between brevity and DIY poetry writing and feeling that one was on a proper poetry course was just right. There was a planned evolution, so lesson planning was evident, backed up by 87 pages of notes and evocative set props, appropriately a constant pile of books on the table beside the oppulent chair upon which Miss Teacher sat arranged in a room with a distinct classy Christmasy feel. It was like a cross between auntie (with Auntie Beeb in the background) and a soft version of Miss Brodie in her Prime. The personal anecdotes brought the whole delivery alive with an easy introduction of actual poets from Seamus Heaney, W. B. Yates to a plethora of excellent female poets, with actual examples of their poetry, demonstrating each particular lesson point, about memory, time, emotion, form and what poetry can say that prose cannot. There is much more that one can say, yet suffice it to say a big thank you to the BBC and especially Carol Anne Duffy, together with her final guest bringing the 'show'/ lesson/ mini lecture series to a close.