Product Description
THE VOICE OF THE POET

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliography, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

"Hearing poetry spoken by the poet is always a unique illumination. This series opens our ears to some of the most passionate utterances and enthralling performances ever recorded."--Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner, Poetry

"There has been a great need for a well-edited audio series for poetry, with high literary and technical quality. J. D. McClatchy has filled this need with great style."--Robert Pinsky ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Voice of Nobility
Stevens' voice is slow and deep.His readings show that he is rediscovering his own poems with each reading.His voice is not "weak and meek" like the first reviewer says. Especially "Key West," Stevens' recitation will give you new incite to his poems.

The literal character, the vatic line...
Stevens is a meditative, mantic, hieratic poet, hence his auditory manner is majestically reflective, slow, & oracular. If you know & care for his poetry his readings are revelatory of its sounds, gestures, gait. It may not be what you expect. It may well be an acquired taste. But once you have his voice in your inner ear you respond to his work as you read it in a more knowing - slower & measured - way. A pity we don't have more of him, more poems from "Harmonium," & especially readings of the longer works, in particular his supreme masterwork, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction." But if only for "Large Red Man Reading," "To an old Philosopher in Rome," and "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" this album is indispensable. I can't complain about audience noises - what little we have of Stevens is valuable beyond measure.

Caveat About Stevens' Voice
Those who have never heard Wallace Stevens read any of his poetry should be forewarned that his voice is quite weak and meek.For so large a man, his voice is as little as a mouse.The rewards for those dedicated to Stevens' poetry is, however, great.The intesity and simplicity of the meaning of the poems he reads is transmitted by the emphasis placed by his own voice.You have no doubt what the poem is about when you hear Stevens read them.That's revelatory.But those who hope to hear the stirring performance of a Dylan Thomas or the range of a Richard Burton should listen elsewhere. ... Read more

Product Description
Read by the Poet
One Cassette, 1 hour

The second installment of our exclusive The Voice of the Poet series, comprised of rare archival recordings, some never before released, featuring the acclaimed Elizabeth Bishop.

This audio production is accompanied by a book containing the text to the poems and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy.Amazon.com Review
In her readings, Elizabeth Bishop extended what James Merrill termed her"instinctive, modest, life-long impersonation of an ordinary woman."Eschewing the grandiosity--the extended pauses for effect, the statelyself-wonder--that could strike her contemporaries and seems epidemic amongher descendants, she opted for a brisk clip. In fact, in "The Map," whichopens The Voice of the Poet, she sounds as if she can't wait toescape New York's 92nd Street Y. The collection includes 23 poems from sixdifferent readings, the first taking place on October 17, 1947, and the last30 years later, when she was clearly congested. It is also accompanied by abooklet containing a fine essay by J.D. McClatchy and the poems themselves.

Bishop offers few remarks, so each one, along with eachslight alteration of text, is precious. For example, she brings "Large BadPicture" to a sudden, marvelous halt with "And I must change that--he neverwas a schoolteacher. I think I liked the rhyme." She is in finest form atthe Coolidge Auditorium in May 1969, and particularly loose with the magical"Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore." Perhaps this has something to do withits vocative mode and its irresistible repetition of "please come flying":"We can sit down and weep; we can go shopping, / or play at a game ofconstantly being wrong / with a priceless set of vocabularies, / or we canbravely deplore, but please / please come flying."

Despite Bishop's attempts at invisibility, her art again and again makesitself felt. One is grateful that she was caught narrating such masterworksas "At the Fishhouses" and "The Moose" as well as the lovely "Poem" about aminiature painting, with its "tiny cows, / two brushstrokes each, butconfidently cows" and celebrated riddle: "A specklike bird is flying to theleft. / Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird?" The tape also includes suchlesser-known pieces as "Cirque d'Hiver." Only Bishop could instill awind-up horse and rider with such desperate beauty, wit, and desire forconnection:

His mane and tail are straight from Chirico
He has a formal, melancholy soul.
He feels her pink toes dangle toward his back
along the little pole
that pierces both her body and her soul

and goes through his, and reappears below,
under his belly, as a big tin key.

Customer Reviews (3)

a Treat!
i bought this tape on a road trip and logged the miles spellbound by howBishop's voice and inflection turned the poems I blew through in collegeinto delightful, insightful stories.This tape, and i'll bet the others inthis series, is an example of why poetry needs to be heard, rather thanread.Send these tapes to schools everywhere!

Essential Elizabeth Bishop, but not for the newcomer...
Elizabeth Bishop disliked the sound of her own voice, and often refused to permit recordings (even private ones) of her readings.Bishop's executor, Alice Methfessel, respected the poet's keen protective instincts, andallowed no commercial issue in the two decades since Bishop's death.As aresult, the speaking voice of this great poet has remained a mystery, evenas Bishop's following and reputation has grown by bounds.

I stillremember the shock of hearing Bishop's voice for the first time. Bishop'svoice is so -- I don't know any other word for it -- so ordinary.This isas true on her early recordings (from the late 1940s) as on her maturereadings (mid 1970s).At times, the listener is tempted to think she doesnot understand the meaning of what she is saying: she is so shy aboutdrawing attention to her poetic craft, and so embarrassed about revealingany hidden emotional content, that she almost seems to be reading the workof another person."Don't you realize," I want to shout,"that you are speaking some of the greatest lines in Americanpoetry?"But we must remember that Bishop's self-effacements, howeverineffective in a public reading, are part of the reason why her poems areso emotionally satisfying.Meaning and memory resonate in the most lightlyobserved surface details.

I would highly recommend this recording toanyone who already knows Elizabeth Bishop's work and biography -- it is anexcellent reference, even if it is not the most entertaining recording.However, I would caution a newcomer to Bishop NOT to start here.It is farbetter to read the poems and the letters first so that you have a sense ofthe many masks this poet wears. Another good place to start is thehour-long documentary on Elizabeth Bishop in the "Voices andVisions" series, which appeared years ago on public television(available in many libraries).James Merrill and Mary McCarthy areinterviewed about their friendship with Elizabeth Bishop and make manyilluminating comments.Blythe Danner -- Gwyneth Paltrow's mom! -- readsthe poems of Bishop, and frankly does a better job of it than Bishop does.

Bishop converses...
The Bishop on this tape is a surprise.She reads easily, congenially, interrupts herself to comment on what she's doing.She's funny, and the humor that's under the surface of the poems gets to bubble up at oddmoments.It's a great selection of poems, and it's fantastically handy tohave the booklet of the texts of the poems (some of which are interestinglydifferent from the versions Bishop reads) tucked into the pocket in thefront of the elegant package.J.D. McClatchy's introduction to her workis, as always, illuminating. ... Read more

Product Description
Georges Bizet's final opera, Carmen, has become one of the best-known plots with the most memorable of music, despite its initial rejection by Paris critics following its "scandalous" 1875 premiere at the OpŽra-Comique, a theater known for works of a lighter flavor. Basing their work on Prosper MŽrimŽe's novella, talented librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic HalŽvy fashioned a timeless story of love, jealousy, and violence in the Spanish city of Seville, all set into motion by Carmen, a seductive, free-spirited femme fatale.

For this new edition of Carmen, artist Davide Pizzigoni once again creates a stage for the imagination with richly allusive illustrations that capture the exotic spirit of the Spanish setting. J. D. McClatchy's fluid and rhythmic translation of the libretto allows the listener full appreciation of Bizet's swift and lustrous score as it is exquisitely performed in this 1950 recording of AndrŽ Cluytens conducting the Orchestre du ThŽ‰tre del'OpŽra-Comique. A truly symphonic experience of song, poetry, and art, Carmen is the perfect gift for any opera fan.

Other Details:
270 full-color illustrations. 200 pages. 9 7/8 x 9 7/8" trim size. Published in 2001. ... Read more

Product Description
Inone of America´s finest poet-critics leads readers into the mysteries of poetry: how it draws on our lives, and how it leads us back into them. In a series of linked essays progressing from the autobiographical to the critical -and closing with a remarkable translation of Horace´s Arsunavailable elsewhere -J. D. McClatchy´s latest book offers an intimate and illuminating look into the poetic mind.McClatchy begins with a portrait of his development as a poet and as a man, and provides vibrant details about some of those who helped shape his sensibility -from Anne Sexton in her final days, to Harold Bloom, his enigmatic teacher at Yale, to James Merrill, a wise and witty mentor. All of these glimpses into McClatchy´s personal history enhance our understanding of a coming of age from ingenious reader to accomplished poet-critic.Later sections range through poetry past and present -from Emily Dickinson to Seamus Heaney and W. S. Merwin -with incisive criticism generously interspersed with vivid anecdotes about McClatchy´s encounters with other poets´ lives and work. A critical unpacking of Alexander Pope´s "Epistle to Miss Blount" is interwoven with compassionate psychological portrait of a brilliant poet plagued by both romantic longings and debilitating physical deformities. There are surprising takes on the literary imagination as well: a look at Elizabeth Bishop through her letters, and a tribute to the Broadway lyrics of Stephen Sondheim and the tradition of light verse.The questions McClatchy poses of poems prompt a fresh look and the last word. Free of scholarly pretension, elegantly and movingly written,is a bright, open window onto a public and private experience of poetry, to be appreciated by poets, readers, and critics alike.Amazon.com Review
J.D. McClatchy is that rare essayist who is concerned bothwith the intellect and with the emotions. The essays gathered inTwenty Questions are erudite and engaging inquiries into hislife, poetry in general, and the work of poets both ignored andrenowned. McClatchy's attention is democratic, as likely to scoop up aquote for his commonplace book (excerpted here) from Coco Chanel asGertrude Stein, Alfred Hitchcock as W.H. Auden. Equal attention isgiven to the lives and work of Jean Garrigue and Stephen Sondheim asto those of Elizabeth Bishop and James Merrill. McClatchy somehowmanages to address the oeuvre of Seamus Heaney in under seven pagesand not seem to give short shrift. His writing is as direct as poemscan be oblique, avoiding altogether any hint of academic jargon orcritical posturing.

McClatchy weaves his way through these poets' lives and work, showingrepeatedly the idiosyncratic balance between the private and thepublic, the straightforward and the hidden. These dichotomies areapparent more than anywhere in the life and work of EmilyDickinson. "Her life remains a puzzle," McClatchy says, "at oncedemurely conventional and powerfully estranged. And her poems remain amystery, plain as a daisy and as cryptic as any heart." Though littleattention is given to the current boom in poetry's popularity, onecan't help but wonder if it might dilute McClatchy's definition ofpoetry as needing "secrets" and "disguises." "In a time when one isasked to admire a string-tied bundle of old newspapers at the WhitneyBiennial," he says, "why shouldn't one take everyheartcry-in-jagged-lines as a poem?" --Jane Steinberg ... Read more

Product Description
A lively selection by J. D. McClatchy, the distinguished poet, critic, and editor, casts Millay's career in a new light. Here are familiar favorites alongside neglected gems: translations, a verse play, songs from her opera libretto The King's Henchman, and the complete sonnet sequence Fatal Interview. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a poor selection
a poor selection of Millay's poems, many of the same sort of lover's complaint... if that's what you want to read of hers, then its great... but if not, then not. ... Read more

Product Description
"McClatchy's heroic labor is a remarkable achievement. . . . Mozart and Da Ponte will be smiling down on this volume."—Richard WilburA landmark event in the world of music, Mozart's seven major librettos have finally been translated in verse with a sparkling poetic quality that matches the magnificence of the originals. Beginning this epic endeavor with his translation of The Magic Flute, first introduced at the Metropolitan Opera, McClatchy has now completed his translations of Idomeneo, The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così Fan Tutte, and La Clemenza di Tito. The result is a brilliantly translated and handsomely designed volume that brings the lively wordplay and drama of the originals to life in a verse that matches the exuberance and lyricism of the original Da Ponte, Schikaneder, Varesco, Mazzolà, and Stephanie librettos. With facing-page text and an illuminating introduction to each opera-including a dramatic recap, a history of the opera, and a list of characters-this book is a masterpiece, the likes of which has never been seen in English before. 8 black-and-white illustrations ... Read more

Product Description
Dazzling in its range, exhilarating in its immediacy and grace, this collection gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past forty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations. From Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich, to Robert Haas and Louise Gluck, this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Great anthology, great variety but...
But I don't understand why some poets aren't represented as extensively as others. Rita Dove has a great body of work but there are only three of her poems in here, they aren't lengthy either. Gjertrud Schnackenburg is another example. Most of the poets that got slighted are at the back of the book. Perhaps the editor ran out of room.

With that said this anthology was a step up from my previous poetry reading endeavors. There is great variety in this book ranging from very "accessible" classics like Roethke's "The Waking" and Wright's "A Blessing", and much longer and more difficult (for me) poems like Merrills "Lost in Translation". The introductory mini-biographies are cool and the general introduction is interesting. I also like the clever cover art. Nothing says America like a blank billboard.

To a poetry neophyte like myself this book is a challenge, but not overwhelming. I look forward to buying the complete works of many of the poets I discovered in it.

As to certain omissions, it seems like this anthology was geared toward the academic highbrow crowd. Hence no Bukowski, Wendell Berry, Stephen Dobyns, Thomas Lux or Raymond Carver....oh the list could go on. There is nothing wrong with these voices, they are distinctly American though and at least one "rough" voice would have been cool.

On a final note why is there no William Carlos Williams in here? Maybe he missed the cutoff date and was a little too old. Oh well.

Excellent Book For Any Poetry Lover
I stumbled upon this book when I was in high school.One day, while browsing through the library during a free period, I noticed this book out of the corner of my eye.I had always been interested in modern poetry, and I thought I'd give this one a try.I found this book to be an incredible anthology of many great writers of what I consider to be one of the most poetic generations to date.I HIGHLY reccommend this anthology to anyone who is interested in contemporary poetry, or any poetry in general.There is something in this book for everybody.You will NOT be disappointed.

A flawed but satisfying anthology
A required textbook for a poetry class, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry is a flawed but satisfying anthology that is a great pick up for new readers and students to the world of poetry.Seventy-five poets are featured in the anthology, including mainstays and well-knowns like Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Mark Doty, and Yusef Komunyakaa among others.Editor J.D. McClatchy provides a short biography of each poet to go along with a handful of poems (usually six or seven) that differ in the length of a quarter page to several.This format is the ultimate flaw of the anthology, along with a few glaring omissions (no Frost or Hughes?then again, this has the words "Vintage" and "Contemporary" in the same title, which is as much an oxymoron as I can think of) thanks to McClatchy, but despite all that, the anthology ends up working well for what it's meant to do.All in all, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry is best suited for newbies or students (as these poems have been featured in previous, and better, volumes and anthologies), and the cheaper list price doesn't hurt either.

Useful despite its flaws
This book is decidedly an anthology of poets rather than poems: everyone gets at least three pages and a half-page introduction. It's also fairly encyclopedic and catholic. The main use of an anthology of this type is to give the interested reader a quick idea of what, say, Merwin or Ashbery or Clampitt is all about. This task it discharges quite well.

Now for the flaws. There are some idiosyncratic omissions, which hurt the book; regardless of what McClatchy thinks of Robert Bly, he should have included a few of his poems and let the reader judge for himself. Similarly with Stanley Kunitz. I assume McClatchy likes Thom Gunn and left him out for being British, which is a little silly because he spent most of his life in California. These omissions make the book a little less complete as a reference.

More seriously, the anthology is a hard slog because so many of the poems are at least a couple of pages long. This means you can't dip in at random and read a poem and be surprised -- which is what anthologies are traditionally for. It would be a more readable book if there were fewer interminable blank verse meditations, many of them unengaging and not very characteristic -- e.g. one would not realize from the selections that Merrill and Hecht were masters of poetic form. That said, one does get some idea of each voice if one persists.

A persistent pattern in this period is the mid-career switch from highly formal verse to a distinctive personal style. (Lowell, Berryman, W.S. Merwin, James Wright, Plath...) It's fascinating to see the mature style next to the earlier style; the book does this sometimes, but not with Merwin.

On the whole this anthology is a slightly unhappy medium. It would have served its purpose better if it had been more conventional; on the other hand I'd have really liked to see an unabashedly personal anthology that more vividly reflected McClatchy's own tastes. Still, what we have is a useful introduction to a very rich period.

Sets the bar for 'Best American Poetry'
If you've ever been disappointed by the inconsistent quality of poems found in the "Best American Poetry" series published by Scribner (with series editor David Lehman), this anthology will show you why. Not every poem will give you chills or connect with your soul, but not a single one is bad or banal. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

America's Civil War in Poetry
Many people in the United States remain fascinated with the Civil War, but relatively few students of the war study how it was viewed in the literature of the day.This is a pity because the poetry of the Civil War is among the best sources we have to see how Americans responded to the conflict, its origins, and its aftermath.This short anthology, "Poets of the Civil War" will introduce the reader to the extensive volume of poetry inspired by the Civil War.The anthology is part of the "American Poets Project" series of the Library of the America with the laudable goal of making readily accessible a selection of the memorable poetry that Americans have written over the years.The volumes in this ongoing series show that the art of poetry constitutes an important American achievement. Professer J.D. McClatchy of Yale University selected the poems and wrote a perceptive introduction to this Civil War volume.

The volume includes selections from 33 poets, arranged chronologically by date of birth.Although Civil War poetry continues to be written, the works in this collection all were written by contemporaries to the war.The poems differ widely in quality and in theme.The volume includes works by famous early American authors, including Bryant, Emerson and Longfellow.Some readers may be surprised to learn that these writers remained active during the Civil War era.The volume also includes a short selection of reflective poems by Emily Dickinson inspired by the Civil War.Dickinson is not often considered as a Civil War poet.

The two poets who best captured the Civil War in their works, Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, are well-represented here.Whitman's poems emphasize the compassion he developed for individual soldiers as shown by "The Wound Dresser".His poems have a feeling of immediacy.The anthology also includes Whitman's great poem on the death of Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last at the Dooryard Bloom'd."

Many readers may not be aware that Herman Melville wrote Civil War poetry.Melville's poetry has received a mixed reception over the years, but I find it offers a moving and thoughtful picture of the war.Melville wrote in a deliberately halting poetic style that emphasizes the ambiguities and conflicts he felt in considering the war.He tended to write about individual battles and events, and his work can be viewed as a sort of running commentary on the war and its aftermath.This selection includes Melville's poem on the battle of Shiloh with its description of the dead as "Foemen at morn, but friends at eve," and a lengthy poem on the horrors of the battle of the Wilderness.

The poems I enjoyed in this volume include the descriptions of battles, including Henry Brownell's eyewitness account of the battle of Mobile Bay, "The Bay Fight", Thomas Read's poem, "Sheridan's Ride", Silas Weir's poem "How the Cumberland Went Down", and Kate Sherwood's "Thomas at Chickamauga".Of the poets that are not well known today, I enjoyed the selection by Henry Timrod, the "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy" and the poems by John De Forest, who is better remembered as the author of the Civil War novel, "Miss Ravenel's Conversion."

The anthology reflects many points of view including strong Southern feelings and feelings equally intense for the Union.Many of the poets, North and South, are more concerned with the death and destruction resulting from the conflict that with the righteousness of their respective causes. But abolitionist poesm such as Julia Ward howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and Francis Harper's "The Slave Auction" find a place in this collection as do poems seeking a peaceful reconciliation of North and South upon the conclusion of the war. Poems with a reconciliationist sentiment include Francis Miles Finch's once well-known poem, "The Blue and the Gray." ("Love and tears for the Blue/Tears and love for the Gray.")

Poetry remains the most direct way to understand the heart of a people.Readers with an interest in understanding the Civil War will enjoy and learn from this short selection of its poetry.

Robin Friedman

WONDERFUL SMALL VOLUME - YOU WILL WANT THIS ONE.
When you think about it, to truely understand a time and a culture, you must understand the culture's music.Poetry is of course a form of music.As an example, much can be gleened from the study of the music published and sung during recent American Wars.There is no doubt the songs of the sixties will be studied by historians and their relationship to that conflict.This wonderful small volume gives us a good sampling of the poetry inspired by the American Civil War.This is a good representative collection.The editor has included works by well known poets of the time to those that are not so well known (actually some that are relatively unknown).The volume is well noted, with explanation of the syntax and wording of the time, which is most helpful. I have been collecting Civil War books for years now and am glad I was able to add this one to my collection.Recommend it highly.

The enduring works of America's finest poets
Compiled, organized, edited, and featuring an introduction by J.D. McClatchy, Yale teacher and editor of the inaugural volume of the American Poets Project, Poets Of The Civil War: Selected Poems traces the advent, progress, and literary legacy of the American civil war as revealed in the enduring works of America's finest poets. Featuring classic works by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Margaret Junkin Preston and much more, the verses reveal poetry's unique ability to evoke emotions and capture fractured states of mind and being in America's most perilous time. Notes clarify some uses of archaic language, metaphors, specific historical references and the like in some poems. Highly recommended for poetry and civil war enthusiasts alike. From "Boston Hymn" by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The word of the Lord by night / To the watching Pilgrims came, / As they sat by the seaside, / And filled their hearts with flame. // God said, I am tired of kings, / I suffer them no more; / Up to my ear the morning brings / The outrage of the poor.

McClatchy The Master Editor Does It Again
J D McClatchy, who has edited many volumes of poetry, and written some poems on his own, is one of our very best editors.His book of Longfellow is the best selection since the 1950s.Now comes a more comprehensive, and at the same time more intimate book.The sheer breadth of poets who might be said to be "Poets of the Civil War" is astonishing, and this is not even counting the many British, French, Caribbean poets who wrote on the war as well, this is just the Americans (both North and South).You can see the years pass by as the book begins with a not very memorable poem by William Cullen Bryant, who was born securely in the 18th century, while several of the poets made it through all the way into the 20th century, not within living memory but sort of.Anyway McClatchy hit on the idea of arranging the poems by the birthyear of the poets who wrote them, and this really points up in an elegant way the mechanisms by which attitudes towards the war seem to shift by generations.

The older poets, people like Bryant who might be described as being old even when the war began, have a very different take on it than those who were teens or even children when the war broke out.We can see this paradigm shift recapitulated in the case of a single poet, say Walt Whitman who, as McClatchy cleverly points out, was all gung ho about the war at first, but later on in life he saw the sadness and the tragedy of the war."Drum Taps" indeed.

This writing teeters on the edge of Modernism and in fact, a fascinating sequel might be compiled, perhaps by McClatchy once again, in which the early US modernists (Amy Lowell, TS Eliot, Pound, Moore, etc) might be seen to be echoing the Civil War as a subject in their poetry.Like Lowell's poem about his Civil War ancestor.In the 20th century, McClatchy claims, poetry narrowed to the "increasingly oblique and intimate lyric."Yes, but this is only a partial truth.Plenty of poems were written on a national and epic scale, but they were increasing de-valued by partisans of New Criticism.Check out Cary Nelson's work in this area.

Though the work on view here in this book is indeed second rate, as McClatchy is eager to admit, it is not negligible, and in fact it's often thrilling, particularly the well chosen poems by Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Ambrose Bierce, Francis Fich, Julia Ward Howe (the famous "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), Emerson's "Boston Hymn," and four great poems by the incomparable H W Longfellow. ... Read more

Product Description
THE VOICE OF THE POET

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliography, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

"Hearing poetry spoken by the poet is always a unique illumination. This series opens our ears to some of the most passionate utterances and enthralling performances ever recorded."--Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner, Poetry

"There has been a great need for a well-edited audio series for poetry, with high literary and technical quality. J. D. McClatchy has filled this need with great style."--Robert Pinsky ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

This is the voice of the poet ...

The Voice of The Poet Series continues to deliver with the Langston Hughes collection which is engrossing and incredible.

This is a CD and Book package that spans the entire career of Langston Hughes's work that was recorded on tape in different settings throughout the years. The book is small, clean and well-presented making it easy for the reader to follow along with the disc.

Langston not only delivers some very straight-forward readings of his work, but does a fair bit of story-telling and warmly lapses into casual conversation in several spots. There is a lot of biographical information in between the poetry which is worth the cost of the set alone. I found this set warm and engaging from beginning to end and wished that there was more.

After looking around on the Internet, I've come to discover that these recordings have been repackaged on compact disc before but without the book and without some of the biographical musings, however, this is the set to buy without any doubt. The recordings are clear, crisp and without static, interference or fading, unlike some of the other products.

If you've never heard Langston Hughes's voice before, get this. If you've never heard him read aloud his poetry and tell parts of his life story, get this. If you've gotten any of the other offerings from 'The Voice of The Poet' series ... get this.


... ...

Hughes has been recorded?
HUGHES HAS BEEN RECORDED?That was my first reaction when I went to the library and found this CD.The pleasure I got listening to Langston Hughes reading his work in a relaxed non rehearsed atmosphere was one of the most thrilling experiences I'd had the pleasure of experiencing in months.I can't wait to share this with my family and discuss the contents. Any one who enjoys poetry, social commentary and history will enjoy this CD.

Fascinating Poetry and History!!!
I am an author and a poet. Langston Hughes' style of poetry is simply amazing. This CD gives a historical rendition on the era of his childhood, school years, work experiences and poetic growth. His world travels certainly expanded his vision of life and impacted positively on his writings. The enlightenment of his trip to Africa resulted in the poem "My People." This poem has a fascinating view of Africa, the people, and Hughes' connection with them. His articulation of the poem "Mother to Son" is amazing. He shows another side of life and how one's vision influences the rearing of a child. One of the greatest poems on the CD is "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." This was written while taking a trip to Mexico to visit his father. In this piece he gives a visionary perspective and uses the art of personification to make the connection of his people, history, and life from a historical standpoint. The poem "Words Like Freedom' and "Tomorrow" will touch the heart of the reader. The stories on the CD are awesome. The reflection he gives of life during his younger years certainly is a distinctive comparison from then to now, especially highlighting how individuals were treated based on the color of their skin. This CD is a must have for one's poetry library. This is not just a CD of poetry it is also a CD of history.Also check "Trilogy Moments for the Mind, Body and Soul" with the new selection of Epulaeryu poems.

Voice of a Hero!!! to Me
Humor, anger, and all the eloquence of the black experience in America is to be found in some of the poems presented here on this audio cd from the THE VOICE OF THE POET SERIES:LANGSTON HUGHES.Also presented is commentary inserted in-between Hughes reading of his poems.You get the background of how a certain poem came into being.You get Hughes talking about his childhood and racial pride.You get Hughes voice, soft, sort of high pitched, and inviting.MY LORD,MERRY-GO-ROUND, THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS, JUDGEMENT DAY,MY PEOPLE,WHEN SUE WEARS RED, and FIRE are a few of the poems recited on this cd by Hughes.For those able to do so, I recommend purchasing the audio tape, LANGSTON HUGHES READS HIS POETRY, because this cd truncates some of Hughes commentary and poems.

It does a disservice to Hughes to dismiss much of his body of work as "wry" to make a particular audience more comfortable with it. It does a similar disservice to Hughes' integrity to ignore that both his parents were black and play up distant white blood to make him more palatable, so-called universal,to the larger audiencences prejudices (most of black America share his same distant bloodlines). One of Hughes's biographers said you cannot respect Hughes without respecting black American people and their culture in the U.S.To disrespect one is to do so to both. Hughes's black pride permeates his so-called race poems and poems of social protest from the 30s and the vast majority of his work in general.

Langston Hughes showed his anger and bitterness toward the injustices of racism as he sharecropped his way among many different genres of the arts as a proud and unflinching black American.His genius, and lesson, was that he did not allow this bitternerss and anger to cause him to hate or infuse his body of work with hate.He may not have liked some in gerneral, but he "never, never" hated.Hughes had to much humanity in him to reward hate with hate.Even in his anger, Hughes could be benevolent.Hughes did not hesitate to like anyone who showedrespect and gestures of friendship to him and his people.His lesson to black artists was be proud of their heritage in their work and not run away from it for a quick profit and famein catering to the prejudices of the larger community beyond that ofblack America. His lesson was also that they should not be
consumed with anger and bitterness even though they had a right to be angry because through their words a world could be enlightened and made better.

Here in THE VOICE OF THE POET:LANGSTON HUGHES,as other works by Hughes, a man is revealedwho was oftenangry and bitter, but who never lost sight that there was some good in the world worth fightiing for. This makes him a writer to be universally admired by everyone regardless of race, religion, and whatever.

His Soul Was Deep Like a River
This is a terrific addition to the Voice of the Poet series. Langston Hughes doesn't just read his poems; he talks about their genesis and about his life. For all the ugliness of Jim Crow, he never sounds bitter, but he tells the whole truth, doesn't sugarcoat anything. My one tiny disappointment is that in the book the format was changed on a couple of poems due to space constraints. This CD is worth it just for his story of how he became a poet. I listen to lots of audio poetry and this is one of the best collections I've ever found. You can't miss. ... Read more

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Alongside Wallace Stevens, James Merrill, and other pillars of twentieth-century poetry, Anthony Hecht joins the Borzoi Poetry series.

Hecht, whose writing rings with the cadences of the King James Bible, and who, as an infantryman at the end of World War II, participated in the liberation of the concentration camps, lived and experienced the best and worst of the twentieth century. Readers of this volume—the first selected poems to be made from Hecht’s seven individual volumes—will be captivated by Hecht’s dark music and allusions to the literature of the past. As J. D. McClatchy explains in his introduction, Hecht was a poet for whom formal elegance was inextricably bound up with the dramatic force, thematic ambition, and powerful emotions in each poem. The rules of his art, which he both honored and transformed, are “moral principles meant finally to reveal the structure of human dilemmas and sympathies.”

This elevated sense of what poetry can accomplish defines our experience of reading Hecht, and will ensure his place in the canon for years to come.

Adam and Eve knew such perfection once,
God’s finger in the cloud, and on the ground
Nothing but springtime, nothing else at all.
But in our fallen state where the blood hunts
For blood, and rises at the hunting sound,
What do we know of lasting since the fall?
Who has not, in the oil and heat of youth,
Thought of the flourishing of the almond tree,
The grasshopper, and the failing of desire,
And thought his tongue might pierce the secrecy
Of the six-pointed starlight, and might choir
A secret-voweled, unutterable truth?
—from “A Poem for Julia” ... Read more

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From backyard to barnyard, from hawks to hummingbirds, from pelicans to peacocks, from Coleridge's albatross to Keats's nightingale to Poe's raven-all manner of feathered beings, the inspiration for poetic flights of fancy through the ages, are gathered together in this delightful volume.

Some of the winged treasures: Emily Dickinson on the jay; Gertrude Stein on pigeons; Seamus Heaney on turkeys; Tennyson on the eagle; Spenser on the merry cuckoo; Amy Clampitt on the whippoorwill; Po Chü-i on cranes; John Updike on seagulls; W.S. Merwin on the duck; Elizabeth Bishop on the sandpiper; Rilke on flamingoes; Margaret Atwood on vultures; the Bible on the ostrich; Sylvia Plath on the owl; Melville on the hawk; Yeats on wild swans; Virgil on the harpies; Thomas Hardy on the darkling thrush; and Wallace Stevens on thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

really nice poetry collection
This is a beautiful poetry collection - especially for the bird lover!This was given as a gift and very well recieved!The "Everyman's Library" has a great range of pocket books for everyone!Glad I found this one!

An Aviary of Delight
J.D. McClatchy, a superb poet and the editor of The Yale Review, has put together a number of landmark anthologies over the years, including the Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry and Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry. For the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets series, he has co-edited an anthology of Christmas Poems with John Hollander. And, most recently, he has edited the Library of America's outstanding edition of the poems of Longfellow.But perhaps nowhere has he brought his refined taste and peerless editorial acumen to bear more beautifully than on this Everyman edition of some of the finest poems about birds in the English language-ON WINGS OF SONG.

McClatchy sets the tone for this collection in his elegant foreword: "At the very dawn of civilization, birds were symbols of the spirit.Falcon or dove, stork or raven or owl, they were our messengers, fierce or gentle intermediaries between our earthbound lives and the upper air."Keenly aware of emblematic types and the categories that they fall into, McClatchy carefully arranges the anthology accordingly.The list of poets that grace this anthology include many timeless masters, ranging from Virgil to Chaucer, from Wordsworth to Yeats, and from Poe to Frost.

The great Romantic era poems about birds, such as Shelley's "To a Skylark" and Keats's "To a Nightingale" are duly included, but the surprises in the collection are numerous. Among my favorites is a little-known four-line poem by the Anglo-Indian poet Vikram Seth, entitled "Pigeons": "The pigeons swing across the square/Suddenly voiceless in midair,/Flaunting, against their civic coats,/The glossy oils that scarf their throats." A number of the poems are also downright funny. Chief among these is X.J. Kennedy's sardonic "Vulture": "The vulture's very like a sack/Set down and left there drooping./His crooked neck and creaky back/Look badly bent from stooping/Down to the ground to eat dead cows/So they won't go to waste/Thus making up in usefulness/For what he lacks in taste."

McClatchy does a masterful job of arranging the poems in a manner that refreshes and surprises the reader at every turn.ON THE WINGS OF SONG is a must have on every birdwatcher's and verse lover's shelf.

Splendid
This Pocket Poets series has done us a great favor by publishing these short collections of a central theme. Past volumes focused on common poetic themes (i.e. love, war, friendship), and while there has already been avolume on animal poems, one devoted to bird poems is certainly time- andpaper-worthy.

This little book gives lovers of poetry (and of birds) achance to indulge in the seemingly forbidden enjoyment, in today's poeticworld, of poetry as an ebullient celebration of the simple and mundane.With so many poets of our time are so caught up with catharsis, neuroses,unresolved parental issues, and the like, it's difficult to imagine thosepoets taking the focus off themselves long enough to consider somethinglike birds, let alone write poems about them. Fortunately, as this bookenchantingly demonstrates, our poetic heritage is too rich to let us forgetthat poet craft has a vast voice to speak of many things, and with a topicsuch as birds, the poem has the power to shake us out of our indifferenceto the ordinary, letting us see its beauty by honoring with beauty.

Ipresently own all the volumes of the Pocket Poets series to date, and thisvolume easily ranks among my favorites. It includes a fascinatingly broadrange of poetic literature from the Bible to contemporaries like SeamusHeaney, and its last section pays homage to "famous" birds inpoetry, such as Coleridge's albatross and Poe's raven.It's worth everycent, and has a very attractive dust jacket to boot, so you'll be temptedto leave it out on your coffee table just to impress your friends.

Beautiful gathering of literary verse revolving around birds
This pocket-sized hardcover of poems about birds provides a beautiful gathering of literary verse revolving around birds, separated by general bird categories from 'backyard' and 'barnyard' to 'birds of prey' andbeyond. A fine gift for a literary birder. ... Read more

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An Anthology of Women Poets that includes: Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, H.D., Louise Bogen, and Muriel Rukeyser.

Each audio production is accompanied by a book containing the text of the poems and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) After attending Radcliffe College, Gertrude Stein lived abroad, mostly in Paris, for the rest of her life.Her home became a cultural salon for writers and artists.Even among Cubist painters who were her friends, her work stands out for its boldness and invention.She turned English on its head with results both witty and enigmatic.In addition to her poetry she wrote novels, memoirs, history, and libretti.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was born in Rockland, Maine to her self-sufficient single mother and three sisters.At her mother’s urging, she entered her poem “Renascence” into a contest: she won fourth place bringing her immediate acclaim and scholarship to Vassar.
While there she continued to write poetry and became involved in the theater.In 1917, Millay published her first book, Renascence and Other Poems.At the request of Vassar’s drama department, she wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell in 1921.
Millay moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, where she led a notoriously bohemian life.In 1920 she published A Few Figs from Thistles, a volume of poetry which drew much attention for its controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism.Her fourth volume of poetry The Harp Weaver (1921) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
Millay married Eugen Boissevain in 1923.Their marriage ended in 1949 with Boissevain’s death.Edna St. Vincent Millay died in 1950 of heart failure.

H.D. (1886-1961) was born Hilda Doolittle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.She attended Bryn Mawr as a classmate of Marianne Moore, and later the University of Pennsylvania where she befriended Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.In 1911, she traveled to Europe intending only to stay for a summer, but remained abroad for the rest of her life.Through Pound, she grew interested in and quickly became the leader of the Imagist movement.Some of her earliest poems gained recognition when they were published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry.
Her work is characterized by the intense strength and intensity of her images, economy of language, and use of classical mythology.Her poems did not receive widespread recognition due in part to the limits of being associated with the Imagist movement, as well as her feminist principles, which were not readily acceptable at the time.She died in 1961.

Louise Bogen

Muriel Rukeyser ... Read more

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THE VOICE OF THE POET

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliograohy, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

"Hearing poetry spoken by the poet is always a unique illumination. This series opens our ears to some of the most passionate utterances and enthralling performances ever recorded."--Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner, Poetry

"There has been a great need for a well-edited audio series for poetry, with high literary and technical quality. J. D. McClatchy has filled this need with great style."--Robert Pinsky ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Poetry, published by Thomson Gale on February 1, 2007. The length of the article is 837 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The arrow in the heart.(VALENTINES)
Author: J.D. McClatchy
Publication: Poetry (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 189Issue: 5Page: 383(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Since the publication of Hazmat, a book about the life of the body—short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize—J. D. McClatchy’s poetry has increasingly taken up the life of the soul. Now in verse as quicksilver as it is authoritative, he returns to themes he has touched on before, but from a new or unusual perspective—focusing on the frame rather than the picture, the tear rather than the sorrow.

The title poem captures the nervous energy and aloneness surrounding the figure of Mercury, while the stunning long poem “Sorrow in 1944” tells the tale of the grown child of Madame Butterfly. McClatchy’s impulse is to tell the story after the story, the minor opera in the shadows of a great one that nonetheless tells its own tale of the heart, bearing its own measure of tragedy and hope.

With its emotional range, maturity, and formal elegance, Mercury Dressing is the finest work to date from one of our most significant poets.

Mercury Dressing
To steal a glance and, anxious, see
Him slipping into transparency—
The feathered helmet already in place,
Its shadow fallen across his face
(His hooded sex its counterpart)—
Unsteadies the routines of the heart.
If I reach out and touch his wing,
What harm, what help might he then bring?
But suddenly he disappears,
As so much else has down the years . . .
Until I feel him deep inside
The emptiness, preoccupied.
His nerve electrifies the air.
His message is his being there.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more