[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjBSC_F1NA"]YouTube- "The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron (poetry reading)[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzyovVVCMP4"]YouTube- "Under Milk Wood" (prologue) by Dylan Thomas (poetry reading)[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vHd3QI5NPE"]YouTube- "Foxtrot from a Play" by W.H. Auden (poetry reading)[/ame]
I love this poem, but this dramatic reading is pretty bad, IMO. I almost think he misses the point... but it's his interpretation. I use this poem when i'm discussion scansion with my students... We look at the anapests... what is it? quadrameter? Anyway... it has an amazing effect when you pound the meter out on the desk... not like that hokey "This above all to thine own self be true" from that dopey movie... but if you listen to that meter, it really sounds like horses charging down into a valley.... And this guy's s-l-o-w reading of the poem loses all of that. Anyway, of course, it's just my opinion... and I could be misinterpreting the meter's purpose, but it sounds like a freakin' cavalry to me!
A couple of my favorites when I was a kid. I use them now when we discuss characters and characterization. Miniver Cheevy by Edward Arlington Robinson Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons. Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold Would send him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, and rested from his labors; He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, And Priam's neighbors. Miniver mourned the ripe renown That made so many a name so fragrant; He mourned Romance, now on the town, And Art, a vagrant. Miniver loved the Medici, Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly Could he have been one. Miniver cursed the commonplace And eyed a khaki suit with loathing: He missed the medieval grace Of iron clothing. Miniver scorned the gold he sought, But sore annoyed was he without it; Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, And thought about it. Miniver Cheevy, born too late, Scratched his head and kept on thinking; Miniver coughed, and called it fate, And kept on drinking. Richard Cory by Edward Arlington Robinson WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, 5 And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: 10 In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, 15 Went home and put a bullet through his head. --- Note: I always wondered if Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's "Lucky Man" was partially based on "Richard Cory" even though the situations are a bit different... one a suicide, one a battle death.
No doubt the poem cries out to be recited but I have no problem with his recitation. I'm more interested in the interpretation of the poem. The opening is magnificient, but for me, the poem lacks a dramatic tension, more like a painting than a narrative. The rousing fearsome beginning is a distinct contrast to the mysterious anticlimax of the angel's intervention. However, it is one of my favourite poems and I enjoy different interpretationa and recitations!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsVH954vmZ8"]YouTube- "The Village Schoolmaster" by Oliver Goldsmith[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VpaY5X0E6s"]YouTube- "The Tyger" or "The Tiger" by William Blake[/ame]
Tom O'Bedlam sure doesn't! I posted a couple comments about his reading and asking him about his choices. He said that my comments weren't helpful to students and removed them. Of course, "This is beautiful. How magnificently you read this poem!" and "This is my new favorite channel!" are extremely helpful to students.... moreso than a discussion about his contradictory interpretation. Ego.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ROKcWw1YA"]YouTube- "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oLnVj953yg"]YouTube- "The Lake Isle of Innisfree " by W.B. Yeats[/ame]
Galway Kinnell (again) Goodbye 1 My mother, poor woman, lies tonight in her last bed. It’s snowing, for her, in her darkness. I swallow down the goodbyes I won’t get to use, tasteless, with wretched mouth-water. Whatever we are, she and I, we’re nearly cured. That night years ago when I walked away from that final class of junior high school students in Pittsburgh, the youngest of them ran after me down the dark street. “Goodbye!” she called, snow swirling across her face, tears falling. 2 Tears have kept on falling. History has lent them its slanted understanding of the human face. After each last embrace the dying give the snow lets fall faster its disintegrating curtain. The mind shreds the present, once the past is over. The Derry graveyard where only her longings sleep and armfuls of flowers go out in the drizzle the bodies not yet risen must lie nearly forever… “Sprouting good Irish grass,” the graveskeeper blarneys, he can’t help it, “a sprig of shamrock, if they were young.” 3 In Pittsburgh tonight, those who were young will be less young, those who were old, more old, or more likely no more; and the street where Syllest, fleetest of my darlings, caught up with me and hugged me and said goodbye, will be empty. Well, one day the streets all over the world will be empty – already, in heaven, listen, the golden cobblestones have fallen still – everyone’s arms will be empty, everyone’s mouth, the Derry earth. It is written in our hearts, the emptiness is all. That is how we have learned, the embrace is all.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ4hU_vXfjs"]YouTube- "Gunga Din" by Rudyard Kipling (poetry)[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrSDq49jqII"]YouTube- Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkffy377vq0"]YouTube- "The Charge of the Light Brigade" Alfred, Lord Tennyson[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL7ysgRNAT0"]YouTube- William Wordsworth - Daffodils - Jeremy Irons[/ame]
Do not go Gentle into that Good Night [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWiE1vNSxU"]YouTube- Dylan Thomas[/ame]
Went to see Billy Collins and Kay Ryan at a conversation and reading tonight. What a great night. They're both utterly hilarious... played off each other well. Great readings. Talked a lot about the process of writing poetry, etc. Great night.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPT-W7rIzQs"]YouTube- "Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley[/ame]