Customer Reviews

The Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century of Poets Reading Their Work

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I originally thought that it would be great to have these poets on a digitized CD format. I now want to re-evaluate my thinking. After 8 hours of looking up poems, I know the table of contents is wrong. The selections by Cummings are not correct and I don't know the right titles. The Spender poem is wrong and I don't know the title. The May Sarton poem is not on the CD at all. After 30 yrs you'd think that Harper Collins could at least identify the poems and poets properly. What a poor way to represent great poets!!!!

My copy of the collection must be recorded incorrectly. The voices are sped up and sound very unnatural. The recording speed must have been set at the wrong value for each track, because some poets sound like a chipmunk and others sound almost okay. The CD plays the same way on a audiophile CD player and two different computers. I recorded a wav file and varied the sampling rate using Matlab. A technician must have transposed 22050 to 20250 Hz on some of the tracks. Though, the other track speeds don't make sense.

Wish I listened to this while studying poetry in school - it would have helped me to "get" the beauty and attraction of poetry.

It's great fun to read up on the poet's bios on Wikipedia while listening to each of them on this tape.

I'm a self-confessed philistine when it comes to poetry - even obvious and popular poems can leave me cold or confused. And it's not through want of trying.

So I thought that hearing poetry read by the author might be enlightening: and it was. This is a good collection with all the famous names from the age of early recorded sounds on thru to the end of the century: Frost, Pound, cummings, Plath. What's odd is how mannered they all sound - even the Welshman Dylan Thomas, who traded on his deep regional roots, delivers in plummy tones.

Poetry is meant to be listened to! Good collection, even if a bit uneven. The notes are not helpful.

I did not know what to expect when I bought this item: I am passionate about poetry, but never enjoyed it too much when read aloud. Now I know that what was lacking was talent and a thorough understanding of the poems being read, as only the poet can have.

Highly recommended!

I love slipping this CD on and just laying in my bedroom listening to some of my favorite poets read their own work-it is haunting and beautiful. If this is the sort of thing you like, then you will enjoy this collection and the price is good for 3 CDs full of poetry.

There are writers whose words have forged bonds of the heart with readers. Though they may have lived in times past, one feels that they are intimates for having captured so clearly our exact feelings, thoughts, and moods. Without having met them, we count them among those we admire or as friends or valued acquaintances. How fascinating to hear their voices reading -- voices that might have gone unheard by people of today except for these recordings. This is as close as we can get to these people now that they're gone.

The joy of this collection is listening to the poetry being read by the author. You can always read to yourself, but hearing how the poet interprets the poem is something special. Find a nice quiet place, relax and enjoy.

wow! i am not a poetry buff... yet, but what a collection. can't stop listening to it....
enjoy