American Poets
The Spoken Word
This three CD set is a companion to the British Poets compilation. Around 30 poets are included, from Gertrude Stein, born in 1874, to Amiri Baraka, born in 1934.
The 20th century was a time of enormous energy and variety in American poetry, embracing such illustrious names as T S Eliot, E E Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Each of the poets is heard reading from their own work.
The recordings are mostly taken from previously unpublished BBC broadcasts.
These CDs are a treasure-trove. Always fascinating and instructive, and always proving that the sound and the sense of poetry cannot be separated.
Sir Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate
Listen to sample tracks using Windows Media Player:
E E Cummings reading 'next to of course god america i'
Robert Frost reading 'After Apple-Picking'
Ogden Nash reading 'The Private Dining Room'
Track listing
DISC ONE
Gertrude Stein
1 A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson [extract]
Robert Frost
2 After Apple-Picking
3 Mending Wall
4 Introduction to The Star-Splitter
5 The Star-Splitter
Wallace Stevens
6 Credences of Summer
William Carlos Williams
7 Introduction to Spring and All I
8 Spring and All I (By the road to the contagious hospital)
9 This Is Just to Say
10 The Yachts
11 Picture of a Nude in a Machine Shop
Ezra Pound
12 Canto 1
13 Canto 51
14 Canto 45
Robinson Jeffers
15 Shane O'Neill's Cairn
16 The Low Sky
17 Inscription for a Gravestone
18 The Bed by the Window
19 The Coast-Road
20 Oh Lovely Rock
T S Eliot
21 Four Preludes
22 The Journey of the Magi
23 The Burial of the Dead
Conrad Aiken
24 Gabriel de Ford
25 Introduction to Morning Song of Senlin
26 Morning Song of Senlin
27 Blues for Ruby Matrix I
DISC TWO
Archibald MacLeish
1 American Letter
E E Cummings
2 she being Brand
3 ?next to of course god america i?
4 MEMORABILIA
5 of all the blessings which to man
6 anyone lived in a pretty how town
7 THANKSGIVING (1956)
Langston Hughes
8 One-Way Ticket
9 The Negro Speaks of Rivers
10 Puzzled
11 Trumpet Player
12 Ballad of the Gypsy
Ogden Nash
13 Introduction
14 The Private Dining Room
15 Introduction to Peekaboo, I Almost See You
16 Peekaboo, I Almost See You
Theodore Roethke
17 Introduction
18 The Heron
19 Introduction to Big Wind
20 Big Wind
21 Introduction to The Waking
22 The Waking
Randall Jarrell
23 Introduction to A Quilt-Pattern
24 A Quilt-Pattern
John Berryman
25 Introduction
26 Dream Song 1
27 Dream Song 5
28 Dream Song 27
29 Dream Song 17
30 Dream Song 16
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks
31 Introduction:
32 We Real Cool
33 Introduction to second reading of We Real Cool
34 We Real Cool (second reading)
35 Introduction to ?Riot?
36 Riot
37 Introduction to A Man of the Middle Class
38 A Man of the Middle Class
Robert Lowell
39 For the Union Dead
40 Water
41 The Flaw
Robert Duncan
42 Introduction
43 ?My mother would be a falconress?
DISC THREE
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
1 Introduction to ?I am Waiting?
2 ?I am Waiting?
Charles Bukowski
3 fire station
4 the tragedy of the leaves
Allen Ginsberg
5 First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hells Angels
6 Kral Majales
John Ashbery
7 Introduction to Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
8 Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
9 Introduction to Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler
10 Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Anne Sexton
11 Introduction to The Addict
12 The Addict
13 Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound
Adrienne Rich
14 In the Evening
15 I Dream I?m the Death of Orpheus
16 Mother-in-Law
17 North American Time (VI-IX)
Gregory Corso
18 The Mutation of the Spirit
Sylvia Plath
19 Candles
20 Berck-Plage
Amiri Baraka
21 A Poem some people will have to understand
22 Epistrophe
