Call the Midwife Loves Poets Who Get to Work

Season 7 and Season 11 of the PBS favorite included poems by poets who worked for a living: just like the women of Nonnatus House.

A still from Call the Midwife Season 7, Episode 8 (Photo: Neal Street Productions)

Looking Back

One of the first PopPoetry articles I ever wrote (and one of the most read posts to date) was a deep dive into Lorca’s “Es Verdad” as it appeared in Season 3 of Call the Midwife. I was struck by how much more a closer look at the poem and a deeper knowledge of the poet added to my experience of the episode, and I wanted to share that knowledge with others. That episode is a major reason I started, and have continued writing, PopPoetry these past three years, and the show consequently holds a very special spot in my heart.

Call the Midwife is deeply poetic in its own right, pairing realistic, emotional stories of birthing people in the 1960s with soaring scores and thought-provoking visuals. Its recurrent use of poetry just adds to its aesthetic and rhetorical power. Let’s look at two other times the show used poetry to make its point when mere words weren’t enough.

*Spoilers Ahead*

Losing a Friend