Friday, July 07, 2006

Poetry Friday

Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath, book with CD. On the CD, Charles Osgood gives an introduction for each poet, giving context for the poet, his or her poetry, the particular poem, and the circumstances of the reading.

I found this refreshing and insightful; both from hearing the poet interpret his own words, but also from a historical perspective, showing both the change in poetry style, oratory style, and recording methods. Tennyson's reading is almost impossible to understand, since it's a wax cylinder recording. While I listened while driving, having the book meant that the listener could also read along; the book also contained poems not on the CD. It's a great reminder that poetry is meant to be heard; but it also made me hungry to hear older poems, or to hear other people interpret the work of these poets.

My favorite new-to-me poem from this collection: Waiting for Icarus by Muriel Rukeyser.
He said he would be back and we'd drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father.

Rest of the poem here.

Thanks to Farm School for the suggestion.

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Poetry Friday contributors:

Blog From The Windowsill reviews A Writing Kind Of Day

Book Buds has a Punny Day

Bookshelves of Doom laughs with Lear

Chicken Spaghetti highlights Mark Doty

Farm School has the Egg Edition

Fuse # 8 brings Frankenstein to the party

Gotta Book has an original soccer (aka football) poem

Jen Robinson shares one of my favorite Macbeth scenes

Little Willow and fog

MotherReader and the Best Poetry Book Ever

Scholar's Blog makes me wonder why WWI is so forgotten

6 comments:

Becky said...

Isn't it a thrilling CD? I'm still waiting for the ILL children's edition.

Thanks for the list -- alphabetized no less! -- of everyone's contributions for the day!

Michele said...

Hi Liz, thanks for the mention. Over here, WW1 is not forgotten, thanks largely to the English syllabus for GCSE and A level including WW1 literature (as it has done for a few years now). I have, however, over the years of maintaining my WW1 website, had many comments from Americans who say that it's largely forgotten in the US - I'm told the focus tends to be on Vietnam. To me, this makes sense as it's your most recent war and, in a way, an end to innocence that the First World War was to us Brits.

Liz B said...

Becky, thanks again for such a great recommendation.

Michele, I'm convinced that the US doesn't have a strong WWI focus because US casualties were less than other countries (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I/Casualties), and I find that appalling. Add to that the lack of archival photos & film (especially compared to WWII, and I believe there is little archival film of actual battles). It's a bit discouraging, especially because I believe that WWI is important not just because of the casualties and the impact that had, but also because of the historical impact of WWI; it truly changed the world more so than other, later wars.

Little Willow said...

Question: Was it you who started Poetry Friday, or was it someone else?

Liz B said...

Kelly H. at Big A little a. She's currently on vacation in Scotland. Initial post: http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2006/03/poetry-friday.html

I thought it was a great idea, and being a list maker, jumped aboard with posting a little something and trying to keep track of who was posting poetry related links.

Michele said...

Liz, you could well be right... You might find Patrick Quinn's book The Conning of America (Rodopi) an interesting read in this regard. It's all about how propaganda was used in the US before and during the First World War.