WEBVTT

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I'm the poetry pharmacist.

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A friend of mine said to me, you're always

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sending me poetry to get
me out of difficulty.

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And she said, I'm organising this
literary festival in the west of England.

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I'm putting you in a
tent, bring down every

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poem you can think of
that would help people.

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I'm going to call you
the poetry pharmacist.

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I'm a singular human
being, and there's only so

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much time I can spend in
a day talking to people.

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Ode means that hundreds, thousands
of people can talk to me every day.

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Poetry is probably the oldest
voice technology in the world.

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Can you put the oldest voice
technology in the world,

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3,000 years of capturing and
saying the unsayable, and

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put it together with the
very latest voice technology?

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When you express what's on your
mind, the system interprets

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that and matches what you're
feeling to a library of poems.

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The poems are recorded by some
of the most wonderful actors and

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actresses in the world, Stephen Fry
and Harriet Walter and so forth.

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It's not altering anyone's
poems or anyone's readings.

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The poems are all the original
poems of all the poets.

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You click on the link and I'll say
something like, I'm William Sieghart

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and I'd love to help you find the
right poem for the moment you’re in.

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I'm finding it hard to
switch off at night.

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I feel anxious.

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I'm looking for adventure.

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My soul is awakened.

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My spirit is soaring.

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and carried aloft on
the winds of the breeze.

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Happy the man whose wish and
care a few paternal acres bound.

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Now that all your worry has proved such an

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unlucrative business, why
not find a better job?

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I felt I'm not lonely anymore.

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Like I had wings.

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You can really find solace
in a poem and feel connection

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from a poem that was written
hundreds of years ago.

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The challenge with it has always
been creating a natural, empathetic

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voice that you want to talk to,
that opens you up to talk to it.

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Not everyone has someone to
lean on when they need it.

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What this technology does is it
just allows us to meet more people

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where they are day to day and give
them that experience of connection.

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Here's a way in which many, many
more people than would ever go into a

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bookshop and buy a poetry book can
hear a poem that really touches them.

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Through the technology,
we can make it so a person

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can feel very seen, very
heard, very in the moment.

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I've been blessed with the ability
to self-medicate with poetry,

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and that's what I hope Ode will
be able to do for everyone.

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It's kind of like a safe
place in a dangerous world.