I've just spent the past hour listening to poets read their work. The power of the internet to bring the voice of Yeats, Williams, Thomas, Eliot, Walcott, Plath and Ginsberg to my ears long after even the possibility existed for me to hear them read in person.
In particular, I was moved by Anna Akmatova's "In Memory of M.B." and Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." Not to mention actually hearing Dylan Thomas read one of my favourite poems, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a poem I copied to write my own poem, "Johnny Cash II."
But I think the poem I loved the most was Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers."
It's so wonderful to hear the words in the voice that was meant to speak them, the voice that created them, the voice that must have come alive in their heads. Such a reminder that poetry is such a vocal art, that so much gets lost sometimes in the translation to the page -- that so much is gained when it's alive and in the world, echoing just beside you. Ah, the wonders of the modern world.
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