I envy you, Jose, that you still have the supreme beauty of Swinburne’s “Tristram of Lyonesse” and the grandeur of his “Erechtheus” ahead of you. Though I add, I still read them with enjoyment every year since my first reading some 38 years ago.
You would envy me then, as well. I was intro’d to Swinburne from a play I read about two weeks ago by Eugene O’Neill titled, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”. There was a quote in there that made my eyes smile wide!
I just took a look at Swinburne’s “Tristam of Lyonesse” and found this beauty while looking through it:
"Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wide glad wastes aflower around,
That twice have heard keen April’s clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard Spring’s light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season.
Life stands crowned Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my soul’s best birthdays dawns the third."
Yeah, you can bet I’ll be reading the rest of it soon!!
A short dicussion with Brian led to this question.
Do many members here like poetry?
If so, how do they like to read it?
and why?
Well, I just really began my literary life, so I haven’t read much poetry…but I did read, as far I know, every poem by Cummings.
I read them mainly because of what I like to call his “sense of Spring” rather than for his “sense of syntax” or “sense of punctuation”. I’m not exactly saying that I don’t like the latter “senses”, just preferring the former more so.
You would envy me then, as well. I was intro’d to Swinburne from a play I read about two weeks ago by Eugene O’Neill titled, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”. There was a quote in there that made my eyes smile wide!
I just took a look at Swinburne’s “Tristam of Lyonesse” and found this beauty while looking through it:
"Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wide glad wastes aflower around,
That twice have heard keen April’s clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard Spring’s light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season.
Life stands crowned Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my soul’s best birthdays dawns the third."
Yeah, you can bet I’ll be reading the rest of it soon!!
Yes, there are many such beauties to be found in Tristram, as well as in many other poems by Swinburne. Not least of all is the full, ongoing rhythm of the poem, which is never forced and never flags, filling one’s lungs, mouth, ears and mind with a continuous perfection of musical speech.
[…]the full, ongoing rhythm of the poem, which is never forced and never flags, filling one’s lungs, mouth, ears and mind with a continuous perfection of musical speech.
Now that’s language that I can understand!
Poetic rhythm written using a…conducting baton…playing music that appeals to all of our literary senses, when we read or hear it being performed.
Today, I found a web-site that has a lot of recordings of poems, fiction etc.. It’s called LibriVox. I haven’t checked out the recordings yet, but from what I can tell they’re all done by amateurs and in the public-domain. (Assuming the poem itself is old enough that it is out of copyright.)
Today, I found a web-site that has a lot of recordings of poems, fiction etc.. It’s called LibriVox. I haven’t checked out the recordings yet, but from what I can tell they’re all done by amateurs and in the public-domain. (Assuming the poem itself is old enough that it is out of copyright.)
Today, I found a web-site that has a lot of recordings of poems, fiction etc.. It’s called LibriVox. I haven’t checked out the recordings yet, but from what I can tell they’re all done by amateurs and in the public-domain. (Assuming the poem itself is old enough that it is out of copyright.)
I just now listened to a really great recitation of “IF”, at this site, by a reader called Chip. He’s an older man with a gravelly voice. Every nuance and vocal shading of every word is wonderfully done.
I just now listened to a really great recitation of “IF”, at this site, by a reader called Chip. He’s an older man with a gravelly voice. Every nuance and vocal shading of every word is wonderfully done.
Ha! I listened to it just minutes before reading your post. I wish the the site should allow visitors to rate the recordings.
Today, I found a web-site that has a lot of recordings of poems, fiction etc.. It’s called LibriVox. I haven’t checked out the recordings yet, but from what I can tell they’re all done by amateurs and in the public-domain. (Assuming the poem itself is old enough that it is out of copyright.)
I just had to look for Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116! Found it! There is only one recitation though that I particularly liked, one read by Martin Clifton. If you’ve ever seen/read Sense and Sensibility you’d understand…
Ha! I listened to it just minutes before reading your post. I wish the the site should allow visitors to rate the recordings.
Yes to that. I’d give Chip’s reading an 11! It was also a pleasure to here the two young women in versions one and two. Beautiful clear voices of sincerity.
I just had to look for Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116! Found it! There is only one recitation though that I particularly liked, one read by Martin Clifton. If you’ve ever seen/read Sense and Sensibility you’d understand…
Of the men readers I, too, like Martin Clifton best, but I like Karen Savage’s reading best of all. To me, she has more fully made this poem an expression of her own.
Of the men readers I, too, like Martin Clifton best, but I like Karen Savage’s reading best of all. To me, she has more fully made this poem an expression of her own.
My judgement was primarily based upon fitting myself with the proper voicepiece…how I would express it since I don’t have a good reading voice of my own yet. He was my best choice out of all of those readers for my expression.
As far as the person who has “fully made this poem an expression of her own”…Kate Hudson as Marianne in S&S, hands down! She expresses it so strongly in fact, that she puts all her remaining strength into just a few of its lines, and collapses afterwards. Now, that’s personalizing the sonnet and fully making it an expression of her own!
Anyways, she recites another poem in the movie when she enters her sister Elinor’s bedroom. It took me a bit of time to find out where it was from. It was from Hartley Coleridge’s, Sonnet VII. I’m mentioning this only to further illustrate how Marianne connects those lines together with her own experiences, which makes one beautiful picture to watch while she’s drawing it for us!
In this particular scene, I get the impression that she was off screen reading this sonnet in another room, and then when she came upon the first six lines of it, she began drawing from it, and wanted to show her sister her drawing… The very first line of that poem “Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No.” is important to her, because she wonders what her sisters answer would be, esp. in regards to Edward Ferrars. Marianne has such passion for reciting poetry…she even openly criticizes (to her sister and mother) the way Edward reads poetry…for example this quote is taken from the S&S novel by Jane Austen: “To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such a dreadful indifference!”
My judgement was primarily based upon fitting myself with the proper voicepiece…how I would express it since I don’t have a good reading voice of my own yet. He was my best choice out of all of those readers for my expression.
I don’t think I’m contradicting myself here, but I thought further about what I said and I think that if I were to ever read this the way that I would want to, I would obviously have to use a male voice (thus my choice of Clifton over the others), but it would have to be read, including some of the stresses that Savage brings to it. After reading this line “O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark”, I would be seen showing the inside of my bottom lip…
Today, I found a web-site that has a lot of recordings of poems, fiction etc.. It’s called LibriVox.
Just wanted to add that the site has many more poems than are apparent at first glance. Some poetry collections appear in the catalog as a single line, e.g. “Short Poetry Collection 001”, but these collections have multiple poems.