The murmur of the snarkmatrix…

Jennifer § Two songs from The Muppet Movie / 2021-02-12 15:53:34
A few notes on daily blogging § Stock and flow / 2017-11-20 19:52:47
El Stock y Flujo de nuestro negocio. – redmasiva § Stock and flow / 2017-03-27 17:35:13
Meet the Attendees – edcampoc § The generative web event / 2017-02-27 10:18:17
Does Your Digital Business Support a Lifestyle You Love? § Stock and flow / 2017-02-09 18:15:22
Daniel § Stock and flow / 2017-02-06 23:47:51
Kanye West, media cyborg – MacDara Conroy § Kanye West, media cyborg / 2017-01-18 10:53:08
Inventing a game – MacDara Conroy § Inventing a game / 2017-01-18 10:52:33
Losing my religion | Mathew Lowry § Stock and flow / 2016-07-11 08:26:59
Facebook is wrong, text is deathless – Sitegreek !nfotech § Towards A Theory of Secondary Literacy / 2016-06-20 16:42:52

Dylan Thomas Reads
 / 

This recording of Dylan Thomas reading his most famous poem is possibly the first time hearing a poet recite his work didn’t disappoint me. Utterly excellent. This is from Boing Boing a while back. Boing Boing later linked to Thomas’ reading of his poem “Lament,” ’cause they’re awesome like that.

November 1, 2005 / Uncategorized

5 comments

The link seems to be down (but Salon’s been goofy the past couple of days) but before it went, I downloaded Thomas’s total catalog of readings. They’re all pretty much wonderful — Thomas was a great interpreter not just of his own poetry, but Yeats’s, Auden’s, and other near-contemporaries, and his reading of A Child’s Christmas in Wales is as good as you’ve been led to believe.

I also like the In Their Own Voices box set, although it peters out a little bit when you get to contemporary poets. Charles Simic reading his poems from The World Doesn’t End is heaven to a young Surrealist like me. And if you’re interested in free poetry downloads, Charles Bernstein and co.’s PENNsound project is pretty unbelievable, although I haven’t yet plumbed its depths.

/ Reply

I was surprised to find that I had nearly the opposite reaction to this recording, Matt. I found Thomas’ inflections and emphasis peculiar, not the way I heard the poem in my head.

Here’s an example of a poet reading his own work that I really do like: Seamus Heaney’s “Song”: http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/heaney/song.html

/ Reply

P.S. I know it’s past Haloween, but I also recommend the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf as one of the scariest things I have ever read.

/ Reply

My favorite thing about the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf is that it begins just like blog-posts do: with the word ‘So…’

/ Reply

So, Robin, how does that makeyou feel?

/ Reply