Poets: The Spoken Word

Synopsis

From the first days of recording the voices of poets reading their own work have been thought worthy of permanent record. This CD looks back at the earliest English-language poets whose voices have survived, starting with Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning, recorded at the end of the 19th century. Among the rarities are the only recording made by Rudyard Kipling in which he reads his own work and live recordings of Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid and Robert Graves. The 32 tracks are:

1. Alfred Tennyson - Charge of the Light Brigade (recorded 05.1890); 2. Robert Browning - How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix (rec 07.04.1889)
3-4. Henry Newbolt - Vitai Lampada (rec 07.08.1929), Drake’s Drum (rec 07.08.1929);
5-6. W.B. Yeats - Introduction to and reading of ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ (rec 10.04.1932); 7. Rudyard Kipling - France (rec 23.11.1921); 8. Laurence Binyon - For the Fallen (date of recording unknown); 9. Hilaire Belloc - Tarantella (rec 12.1932);
10-11. Walter de la Mare - Nod (rec 06.04.1934), Song of Shadows (rec 06.04.1934);
12. Gertrude Stein - A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson (rec 1935); 13. Robert Frost -
Stopping by woods on a snowy evening (rec 1948); 14. John Masefield - Sea Fever (rec 03.11.1941); 15. Alfred Noyes - The Highwayman (rec 07.1929); 16. Rose Macaulay - The Alien (rec 06.1929); 17-18. John Drinkwater - Cotswold Love (rec c.1929), Mrs Willow (rec c.1929); 19-20. William Carlos Williams - Spring and All (rec 05.05.1945), Queen-Anne’s-Lace (rec 05.05.1945); 21. Ezra Pound - The Seafarer (rec 17.05.1939); 22-23. Siegfried Sassoon - Attack (rec 06.04.1956), Died of Wounds (rec 06.04.1956); 24. Robinson Jeffers - To the Stone Cutters (rec 1941); 25-26. Edith Sitwell - Jodelling Song (rec 28.09.1929), A Man from a Far Countree (rec 28.09.1929); 27. T.S. Eliot - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (rec 1948); 28-29. Hugh MacDiarmid - The Watergaw (rec 03.02.1969), The Eemis Stane (rec 03.02.1969); 30. E.E. Cummings - my father moved through dooms of love (rec c.1950); 31. David Jones - In Parenthesis [extract from Part 7] (rec 1967); 32. Robert Graves - 1805 (date of recording unknown)

Series

Spoken Word, The

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2004

Availability

out of distribution

Documentation

a 16-page booklet giving full details of the recordings

Subjects

English language and literature

Keywords

archive sound recordings; Browning, Robert (1812-1889); Eliot, Thomas Stearns (1888-1965); Graves, Robert; Kipling, Rudyard; MacDiarmid, Hugh (1882-1978); poetry; Tennyson, Alfred Lord; Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939); Cummings, E.E.; Frost, Robert; Williams, William Carlos; Pound, Ezra; Newbolt, Henry; Sassoon, Siegfried; Binyon, Laurence; Belloc, Hilaire; de la Mare, Walter; Stein, Gertrude; Macaulay, Rose; Drinkwater, John; Jeffers, Robinson; Sitwell, Edith; Jones, David

Distribution Formats

Type

Audio

Format

CD

Price

£9.95

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

70 minutes

Publisher

Name

British Library Sound Archive

Email

listening@bl.uk

Web

http://www.bl.uk/nsa External site opens in new window

Phone

020 7412 7676

Fax

020 7412 7441

Address

96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB

Distributor

Name

British Library Online Shop

Email

bl-shop@bl.uk

Web

http://shop.bl.uk/mall/departmentpage.cfm/BritishLibrary/87294/1/1 External site opens in new window

Phone

020 7412 7735

Address

96 Euston Road
London
NW1 2DB

Notes

A range of audio publications related to the collections of the British Library’s Sound Archive. Historical topics, wildlife sounds, world music, art and literature are particularly strongly represented. There are also a few DVDs, videos and CD-ROMs based on holdings in the BL. Some of the titles are available for paid audio download.