Poetry to your ears

A new web site offering free streamed audio with a difference is launched today.

The Poetry Archive was created to make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience. It came into being as a result of a meeting, in a recording studio, between Andrew Motion, soon after he became U.K. Poet Laureate in 1999, and the recording producer, Richard Carrington. They agreed about how enjoyable and illuminating it is to hear poets reading their work and about how regrettable it was that, even in the recent past, many important poets had not been properly recorded.

Launched online today (1st December) the Poetry Archive is a treasure-trove of English-language poets reading their own work. Some are historic recordings, some have been made specially for the Archive - which means its range is the widest possible: from Tennyson at the end of the 19th century, through poets such as Allen Ginsberg (picture above) and Langston Hughes in the middle of the 20th century, to contemporary poets including Seamus Heaney, Ruth Padel and Kathleen Jamie.

No more words are needed. Just click over to the Poetry Archive, or open the links above, and enjoy a fantastic aural feast. This is one of the most important internet resources to appear for years, and its free.

Picture credit - Alan Ginsberg from Barcelona Review
Report broken links, missing images, and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
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Comments

Glenn North said…
To Whom It May Concern:

Please visit me at www.fortunateadversity.blogspot.comI am poet who just entered the blogosphere.

Peace,
Glenn
4:42 am
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