Customer Reviews

Wallace Stevens (Voice of the Poet)

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Stevens is a meditative, mantic, hieratic poet, hence his auditory manner is majestically reflective, slow, & oracular. If you know & care for his poetry his readings are revelatory of its sounds, gestures, gait. It may not be what you expect. It may well be an acquired taste. But once you have his voice in your inner ear you respond to his work as you read it in a more knowing - slower & measured - way. A pity we don't have more of him, more poems from "Harmonium," & especially readings of the longer works, in particular his supreme masterwork, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction." But if only for "Large Red Man Reading," "To an old Philosopher in Rome," and "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" this album is indispensable. I can't complain about audience noises - what little we have of Stevens is valuable beyond measure.

Stevens' voice is slow and deep. His readings show that he is rediscovering his own poems with each reading. His voice is not "weak and meek" like the first reviewer says. Especially "Key West," Stevens' recitation will give you new incite to his poems.

Those who have never heard Wallace Stevens read any of his poetry should be forewarned that his voice is quite weak and meek. For so large a man, his voice is as little as a mouse. The rewards for those dedicated to Stevens' poetry is, however, great. The intesity and simplicity of the meaning of the poems he reads is transmitted by the emphasis placed by his own voice. You have no doubt what the poem is about when you hear Stevens read them. That's revelatory. But those who hope to hear the stirring performance of a Dylan Thomas or the range of a Richard Burton should listen elsewhere.