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