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Title: Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath (Book and 3 Audio CDs) by Elise Paschen, Rebekah Presson Mosby ISBN: 1-57071-720-6 Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade Pub. Date: October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 10 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: What Would Be Like To Listen To Great Poets?
Comment: Did you ever wonder what it would be like to listen to Alfred, Lord Tennyson recite some of his most well known poems?
How about T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Robert Browning, Ogden Nash and many more.
These are only a sampling of some of the 42 deceased poets, who speak to us in book so appropriately entitled,
Poetry Speaks.
Unfortunately, many of us never had the opportunity to experience poems that, as the editors of this wonderful book indicate, "speaks to each of us at another level, below our consciousness. Like music, it reaches inside to touch us."
Not only does this book and its accompanying 3 CDs enable us to listen to these great men and women of letters, but we also can read along with them, and learn about the different schools and types of poets- Victorians, Imagists, Modernists, Harlem Renaissance poets, Black Mountain poets, Beat poets, and Black Arts Movement poets.
To facilitate the reading and appreciating of the book, the editors have conveniently provided us with a table of contents listing the poets' names, their life span dates, poems included in the book, as well as a track list of the recited works contained on the CDs.
Each chapter devotes itself to one specific poet, and the chapters are arranged in chronological order by birth date.
Within each chapter readers are presented with a short biography that is meant to be an introduction to the poet's life.
To further pique our interests, the editors provide essays about the poets written by prominent living poets.
As indicated, "these essays can help you gain a very different insight into each of the poets."
What is also fascinating is the inclusion of many rare handwritten manuscripts, letters, or photographs that aid in our understanding of the poets.
One word of caution, when listening to some of the poems you will notice that some of the readings are very different from the published versions. As the editors indicate, "poets are constant revisers and they sometimes change a poem even in the middle of a reading. This is another level of understanding that can't be achieved by simply reading or listening to a poem."
British essayist, William Hazlitt, most aptly described poetry, when he stated in his essay entitled, On Poetry in General,
"Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else."
After devouring this remarkable book and the accompanying CDs, I can well understand why Hazlitt came to this conclusion.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not a bad effort, fills a hole
Comment: I love poetry and I love hearing poets recite their own work. I can't think of another CD which brings together such a broad collection of recordings. It really is an idea whose time has come. This collection has exposed me to some poets I didn't know before, has deepened my appreciation for some that I had barely heard of, and has given me a real feeling for how tastes in poetry reading change over time. So basically it is a good book/cd set. If you have a lot of money, or if you have been yearning for this kind of thing for a long long time (as I had), then you might consider getting it.
Now the problems. Interspersed with the poetry tracks are tracks of a really dorky sounding narrator (that would be Charles Osgood) giving you a bio on the poet who follows. He sounds like a cheesy voice-over speaker from an overproduced tv documentary. He is so annoying that I cannot bear to let the CD run, as I do my other recorded poetry CDs. And who wants to keep listening to bios, anyways? It's as if the CDs were made to be listened to only once. I have the terrible feeling that the editors thought this narration would be helpful for high-school teachers. I cannot even imagine being forced to listen to his voice while sitting in class . . this kind of thing is what made high school intolerable. Especially when you move from Osgood's narration to someone like Etheridge Knight reciting, the disparity couldn't be more disheartening. When I want to listen to the poems, then, I have to sit by the player or keep a remote in my hand to keep skipping the narration tracks. It really has dampened my appreciation for this effort, since my favorite way to listen to poetry is while washing dishes (hands occupied). I wish they had decided just to let the poets speak for themselves. The biographical information is in the book, anyways.
I rated the set so far down because my sense is that in their effort to make it 'accessible,' the editors of this set overprocessed it. The text layout and the presentation of information (what information they choose to provide as well as the way of providing it) have a sterile, commercial feel (even forgetting the narration on the CD). The book is far too heavy. The editors could have included all the same poets, all the essays, biographical information, etc. in a much simpler set, in paperback perhaps, with clean lines and normal book paper, and they would have created an instant classic. It's disappointing that poetry lovers would have such bad taste. So get it, but don't expect to be really happy with it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely incredible!
Comment: This book is not only perfect for poetry lovers, but for those new to poetry who have some interest in it. There is nothing that compares to hearing a poet read his/her work--the musicality of verse is much of the pleasure that anyone can take in poetry. The CDs contain a wide range of poets' work, including Tennyson, Whitman, Eliot, Plath, Frost, Parker, Millay, Brooks, Hughes, etc. The book has all the recorded poems printed, with short biographical notes on each poet. Owning a Norton Anthology is great, but if you could only buy ONE volume of poetry, this book should be it. It satisfies every way to appreciate poetry. This book is really for everyone.
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Title: The Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century of Poets Reading Their Work by Various ISBN: 0694522783 Publisher: HarperAudio Pub. Date: 25 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Seven Ages: An Anthology of Poetry With Music by Naxos Audio ISBN: 9626341890 Publisher: Naxos Audio Books Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.98 |
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Title: Dylan Thomas CD : The Caedmon Collection by Dylan Thomas, Thomas Dylan ISBN: 0694526592 Publisher: HarperAudio Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Good Poems by Garrison Keillor ISBN: 0142003441 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Caedmon Short Story Collection by Various ISBN: 0694524557 Publisher: HarperAudio Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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