Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson
2. Come into the Garden, Maud - Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson
3. How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix [Excerpt] - Robert Browning
4. America [Excerpt] - Anne Sexton
5. Lake Isle of Innisfree - W.B. Yeats, William Butler Yeats
6. Song of the Old Mother - W.B. Yeats, William Butler Yeats
7. Lucinda Matlock - Edgar Lee Masters
8. Emily Sparks - Edgar Lee Masters
9. Creation - James Weldon Johnson
10. If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso - Gertrude Stein
11. Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
12. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost
13. From the People, Yes (#90) - Carl Sandburg
14. So and So Reclining on Her Couch - Wallace Stevens
15. Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos Williams
16. For Elsie [From Spring and All] - William Carlos Williams
17. From Hugh Selwyn Mauberly - John Poch
18. From Helen in Egypt [Excerpt] - Hilda Doolittle, H.D.
19. Journey of the Magi (With Introduction) - T.S. Eliot
20. Recuerdo - Edna St. Vincent Millay
21. Love Is Not All - Edna St. Vincent Millay
22. Résumé - Simon J. Ortiz
23. Lady's Reward - Dorothy Parker
24. As Freedom Is a Breakfastfood - Al Cohn
25. To Juan at the Winter Solstice - Robert Graves
26. From John Brown's Body - Steven Vincent Benét,
27. Strong Man - Sterling A. Brown
28. Negro Speaks of Rivers (With Intro) - Richard Howard
29. Waery Blues (With Intro) - Langston Hughes
30. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man - Ogden Nash
31. King of the River - Maxine Kumin
32. Cave of Nakedness - W.H. Auden
33. I Knew a Woman - Theodore Roethke
34. Elegy for Jane - Theodore Roethke
35. Late Air - Elizabeth Bishop
36. Fish - Elizabeth Bishop

Disc 2:

1. Those Winter Sundays - Robert Hayden
2. Ballad of Orange and Grape - Muriel Rukeyser
3. To Be a Jew in the Twentieth Century - Muriel Rukeyser
4. #23 (The Lay of Ike) - John Berryman
5. #36 (The High Ones Die...) - John Berryman
6. World Is So Difficult to Give Up... - David Ignatow
7. This Is the Solution, To Be Happy with Slaughter... - David Ignatow
8. Here I Am with Mike in Hand, Shooting Down the Rapids... - David Ignatow
9. I Killed a Fly... - David Ignatow
10. What About Dying?... - David Ignatow
11. Passing Remark - William Stafford
12. Serving with Gideon - William Stafford
13. And Death Shall Have No Dominion - Dylan Thomas
14. Tombstone Told When She Died - Dylan Thomas
15. Mother - Gwendolyn Brooks
16. We Real Cool - Gwendolyn Brooks
17. Skunk Hour - Robert Lowell
18. Crossing Over - Edgar Lee Masters
19. See It Was Like This When... - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
20. Underwear - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
21. Secret of My Endurance - Charles Bukowski
22. Ray - Hayden Carruth
23. Love Calls Us to the Things of This World - Richard Wilbur
24. American Haikus [Excerpt] - Al Cohn, Jack Kerouac, Vijay Seshadri
25. Death Psalm: O Lord - Li-Young Lee, Li-Young Lee
26. Monet Refuses the Operation - Lisel Mueller
27. Woodchucks - Maxine Kumin
28. America - Allen Ginsberg
29. Still - A.R. Ammons
30. My Philosophy of Life - John Ashbery
31. After Making Love We Hear Footsteps - Suji Kwock Kim
32. Last Gods - Galway Kinnell
33. Blessing - James Wright
34. All My Pretty Ones - Anne Sexton
35. For My Lover, Returning to His Wife - Anne Sexton

Disc 3:

1. Even in Paris [Excerpt] - Richard Howard
2. Diving into the Wreck - David Ray
3. Lovesong - Ted Hughes, Ted Hughes
4. Omeros [Excerpt] - Derek Walcott
5. Song of the Taste - Gary Snyder
6. Why I Take Goos Care of My Macintosh Computer - Gary Snyder
7. Idea of Ancestry - Etheridge Knight
8. Daddy - Pedro Pietri
9. Greatest Porm in the World - Kevin Prufer
10. Oddly Lovely Day Alone - John Updike
11. Bang, Bang Outishly - Amiri Baraka
12. Rhythim Blues - Amiri Baraka
13. Shazam Doowah - Amiri Baraka
14. Dahomey - Audre Lorde
15. Right to Life - Elise Paschen
16. Poem - Mark Strand
17. Zimmer Imagines Heaven - Paul Zimmer
18. Cruelty. Don't Talk to Me About Cruelty - Marilyn Chin
19. I Have Had to Learn to Live with My Face - Diane Wakoski
20. We Were So Poor... - Charles Simic
21. I Was Stolen by the Gypsies... - Charles Simic
22. Everybody Knows the Story... - Charles Simic
23. Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney
24. Lester Leaps In - Zoot Sims
25. Dfance for Militant Dilettantes - James Tate
26. Fire - Gloria Vando
27. Odysseus to Telemachus - Joseph Brodsky
28. Sometimes It's Better to Laugh 'Honest Injun - Simon J. Ortiz
29. Ode to My Shoes - Erica Jong

Disc 4:

1. Wonder - Sharon Olds
2. Lost Pilot - Anne Sexton
3. Puerto Rican Obituary [Excerpt] - Pedro Pietri
4. Uh Oh Plutonium - Anne Waldman
5. Fine Printing on the Label of a Beer of Non-Alcohol Beer - Adrian Louis
6. Sweat Lodge - Adrian Louis
7. Facing It - Yusef Komunuakaa
8. Logan Heights and the World - Mark Daterman, Juan Felipe Herrera
9. Colonel - Carolyn Forché,
10. History of Armenia - Peter Balakian
11. Grace - Joy Harjo
12. Parsley - Mark Daterman
13. Long Meadow - Vijay Seshadri
14. Floral Apron - Marilyn Chin
15. Raisin Eyes - Luci Tapahonso
16. Concrete River - Dr. Luis Rodriguez
17. My Father, In Heaven, Is Reading out Loud - Jonathan Lamfers
18. Two Standards - Elise Paschen
19. I Saw You Walking - Deborah Garrison
20. Female Seer Will Burn Upon This Pyre - Elizabeth Alexander
21. After the Gig: Mick Jagger - Elizabeth Alexander
22. Morning Broke on My Cabin Inverted, Tempest in My Forehead - D.A. Powell
23. Eleven More Days - Carl Hancock Rux
24. Simon Peter - John Poch
25. Fragments of the Forgotten War - Suji Kwock Kim
26. Lucky Criminals - D.A. Powell
27. Slaughter - Kevin Young
28. Scab - Jonathan Lamfers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8644 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-18
• Number of discs: 4
• Format: Box set
• Dimensions: 1.39 pounds

Album Description
THE ULTIMATE POETRY BOX

Poetry On Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888-2006) is an engrossing collection of poems read by the people who wrote them, from the dawn of sound recording to the current day. Over the course of four CDs and an info-packed book, it tells the story of the past 120 years of poetry in English, from Romanticism (Dylan Thomas) to Modernism (T.S. Eliot), from the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes) to Black Arts (Amiri Baraka), from rhyme and meter (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) to free verse (Adrienne Rich) and beyond. Equally important, it allows listeners to understand exactly how poets intended their poems to be read aloud. With 128 poems read by 98 poets, Poetry On Record is the most comprehensive collection of its kind, covering such famous poets as Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsburg, and Sylvia Plath, as well as a plethora of lesser-known but highly regarded poets.

Poetry On Record is a must-have for any fan of poetry, or for anyone who wants an expertly chosen overview as a starting point.

Produced and compiled by noted poetry expert Rebekah Presson Mosby

Customer Reviews

Excellent, mainly for the 1st and 2nd CDs
This is an excellent collection, worth having, but primarily for the first two CDs. (I wasn't aware any recording of Walt Whitman existed at all.)

Many of the recordings are surprising for the style of reading. Whitman's is one -- his accent made me gape. Likewise, the style of Yeats or Eliot is a real insight into how poetry was received in a different time.

I give the collection 4 stars instead of 5 for its unevenness. I can think of vastly more interesting people than Rebekah Presson Mosby to compile such a collection. And the selection of contemporary poets is erratic with glaring omissions and curious (even pointless) inclusions. Why three selections of Amiri Baraka (whose work I do like) but only one of Seamus Heaney? Or A.R. Ammons or John Ashberry or Adrienne Rich?

Sadly missing (a partial list and in no particular order): Louise Gluck, Nikki Giovanni, Mark Doty, Thomas Hardy, Marianne Moore, Philip Larkin, W.S. Merwin, Michael Ondaatje. (Of course, I have my own biases.)

And it would have been wonderful to hear some poets back to back on the same work. For example, William Butler Yeats and Galway Kinnell reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (Yeats's work and one of Kinnell's favorites). Admittedly, this might be asking too much.

So, on balance, very worth having for the recordings of the late poets.

Incredible collection of recited poetry
This boxed set is absolutely amazing. Lots of big-name poets as expected but also tons of great poets I'd never heard of before. It's fascinating to hear poetry read by the poets themselves because it adds a whole new dimension to your appreciation and understanding of the poems.

The other very notable aspect of this box is the gorgeous packaging. It comes housed in a sturdy slipcase, and the beautifully illustrated book includes great essays that further deepen your understanding of the poems.

Overall, this is a simply amazing collection for anyone who loves poetry or who might want to try getting their feet wet with it. I'm definitely getting one for my mom on Mother's Day, and I can think of at least three other people who'll be getting it for Christmas.

Must have if you love or even like poetry
This set was nominated for a Grammy and I certainly think it is worthy of winning. Rebekah Presson Mosby has compiled and produced an outstanding collection of some of the most important poets to date. To hear Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein in their own voices is truly amazing. It's easy to get lost in the poetry, much nicer than listening to music while driving. I have all of Rebekah Presson Mosby's works and I think this set and Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like The Rivers are my two favorites.