The Poetry Archive is today, Tuesday 16 September, adding 14 major 20th-century American poets to its growing online audio archive with the launch of the Poetry Across the Atlantic project. A transatlantic collaboration between the Poetry Archive and the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, this project aims to reacquaint the UK with modern American poetry and gives poetry lovers a unique opportunity to discover and listen to some of the most celebrated American poets for free. When completed, the project will consist of over 100 essential American poets reading their own work.
The Poetry Archive and the Poetry Foundation have worked closely with the British Library and the Library of Congress to gather together the audio for the project. Many of the recordings appear in a digital format for the first time. This new selection of free audio recordings from classic American poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Theodore Roethke is elsewhere unmatched. Previously unavailable or difficult to obtain, these recordings are now fully digitalised and easily accessible online through http://www.poetryarchive.org/ and http://www.poetryfoundation.org/.
The initial stage of the project allows listeners a rare opportunity to hear recently appointed US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan reading poems such as Paired Things and Flamingo Watching. Other American voices to be added include William Carlos Williams, former US Poet Laureates Gwendolyn Brooks, Ted Kooser and Robert Pinsky, and Pulitzer Prize-winners Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine and Theodore Roethke. In addition, the launch includes important recordings by poets Hayden Carruth, Galway Kinnell, Heather McHugh, Rodney Jones, and Jean Valentine.
Amongst the 61 recordings added today are definitive works such as William Carlos William’s The Red Wheelbarrow, Yusef Kumunyaaka’s Facing It, Galway Kinnell’s Saint Francis and the Sow, Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz and poems by former US Poets Laureate Ted Kooser and Gwendolyn Brooks— A Room in the Past and The Lovers of the Poor respectively. Additionally, rare recordings by poets including Donald Hall, Louise Bogan, Yvor Winters, Elizabeth Bishop and James Tate are due to come online within the next few months. The new additions join 19 American poets already featured in the Poetry Archive, including T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg and former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove.
This new compilation of seminal American poets was selected by former US Poet Laureate Donald Hall in consultation with UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive. Donald Hall comments on the project:
“There is nothing like hearing the poet’s voice. The entryway to poetry is the beauty of its sound. Sound persuades us of its authenticity and prepares us to receive the subtlety and power of its emotion. This online archive of poetry recordings opens the wholeness of poetry to the world’s ear.”
Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate and co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive, comments: “Adding these American voices to the Poetry Archive has been a real revelation to us, given the rarity of some of the recordings in the UK, which means we were hearing many of these famous names for the first time. And what a wonderful variety of accents and rhythms is implied by that single word ‘American’ - one day you might be listening to Ted Kooser’s wise, deep tones transporting the listener to the stillness of a Nebraskan winter evening, the next to the restrained anguish of Yusef Komunyakaa commemorating the sufferings of the Vietnam war. Throughout the experience of listening to and writing about these voices we feel we’ve been mapping America in a new and intimate way. The very generous and imaginative support of the Poetry Foundation, which will lead over the next little while to recordings of more than a hundred American poets being added to the site, is a very significant moment in the continuing evolution of the Poetry Archive. We are deeply grateful to the Poetry Foundation, and very excited to be working in partnership with them.”
The Poetry Archive and the Poetry Foundation have worked closely with the British Library and the Library of Congress to gather together the audio for the project. Many of the recordings appear in a digital format for the first time. This new selection of free audio recordings from classic American poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Theodore Roethke is elsewhere unmatched. Previously unavailable or difficult to obtain, these recordings are now fully digitalised and easily accessible online through http://www.poetryarchive.org/ and http://www.poetryfoundation.org/.
The initial stage of the project allows listeners a rare opportunity to hear recently appointed US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan reading poems such as Paired Things and Flamingo Watching. Other American voices to be added include William Carlos Williams, former US Poet Laureates Gwendolyn Brooks, Ted Kooser and Robert Pinsky, and Pulitzer Prize-winners Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine and Theodore Roethke. In addition, the launch includes important recordings by poets Hayden Carruth, Galway Kinnell, Heather McHugh, Rodney Jones, and Jean Valentine.
Amongst the 61 recordings added today are definitive works such as William Carlos William’s The Red Wheelbarrow, Yusef Kumunyaaka’s Facing It, Galway Kinnell’s Saint Francis and the Sow, Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz and poems by former US Poets Laureate Ted Kooser and Gwendolyn Brooks— A Room in the Past and The Lovers of the Poor respectively. Additionally, rare recordings by poets including Donald Hall, Louise Bogan, Yvor Winters, Elizabeth Bishop and James Tate are due to come online within the next few months. The new additions join 19 American poets already featured in the Poetry Archive, including T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg and former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove.
This new compilation of seminal American poets was selected by former US Poet Laureate Donald Hall in consultation with UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive. Donald Hall comments on the project:
“There is nothing like hearing the poet’s voice. The entryway to poetry is the beauty of its sound. Sound persuades us of its authenticity and prepares us to receive the subtlety and power of its emotion. This online archive of poetry recordings opens the wholeness of poetry to the world’s ear.”
Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate and co-founder and co-director of the Poetry Archive, comments: “Adding these American voices to the Poetry Archive has been a real revelation to us, given the rarity of some of the recordings in the UK, which means we were hearing many of these famous names for the first time. And what a wonderful variety of accents and rhythms is implied by that single word ‘American’ - one day you might be listening to Ted Kooser’s wise, deep tones transporting the listener to the stillness of a Nebraskan winter evening, the next to the restrained anguish of Yusef Komunyakaa commemorating the sufferings of the Vietnam war. Throughout the experience of listening to and writing about these voices we feel we’ve been mapping America in a new and intimate way. The very generous and imaginative support of the Poetry Foundation, which will lead over the next little while to recordings of more than a hundred American poets being added to the site, is a very significant moment in the continuing evolution of the Poetry Archive. We are deeply grateful to the Poetry Foundation, and very excited to be working in partnership with them.”
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