Great poets reading their poems
 

Inspired by the discussion here of the Millay recording, today I have posted eight videos on my Twitter account (@amjuster) of great poets reading their poems. Until today I had never heard the voices of Eliot or Plath; it moved me more than I thought it would.

Copyright owners sometimes object to links to YouTube videos, so I couldn't post the chilling Dorothy Parker reading of "Resume" and some other wonderful readings.

Enjoy!

Thank you. I just purchased Poetry Speaks and now enjoy poetry readings while driving.

I play the "Prufrock" recording for my students whenever I teach the poem. It really makes a difference to hear it in Eliot's voice. You can also find his reading of The Waste Land here.

Nausheen

Nausheen, yes, I had it pretty much memorized as a teenager, but his cadences feel very different from mine.

If only I could have explained to him how to recite it...

I've had the Eliot Prufrock tape in my car forever - I'm not even sure that the metal and plastic parts haven't bonded, making it impossible to remove. The voice is so...so...perfectly Eliot. When things aren't going well, poet-wise, I play it and it inspires me (which might reveal more about me than I'd prefer, but I guess it's better than child molestation, or voting Republican.)

If you ever see Tom and Viv, the film based on Eliot's first marriage, Willem Dafoe nailed the voice. Extraordinary.

I had a tape I used to play in my car tape deck (I'll explain that technology later for the young folks) that had a marvelous reading by Dylan Thomas in which the riffs between the poems were even more magical than the poems. The line that stuck with me was: "There are no poetry audiences, just occasional gatherings of eccentrics."

I used that line in the Collins manuscript.

I've been plugging two Neruda poems produced by the Four Seasons production company, there are Neruda poems read Neruda but the two YouTubes by Four Seasons which are Inclinado En Las Tardes ( leaning into the afternoons) and Poema 20 combine film, music, recitation in Spanish and English subtitles, they are my favourite spoken poems.

Michael,

There are some surprising things out there, in voices I never thought to hear:

A possibly authentic recording of the good gray poet:

http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/

Something for the Tennyson lovers among us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkqUq26z1CE

"Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I

Best,

Bill