volunteers bring you 10 recordings of A Baby Running Barefoot by D. H. Lawrence. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of September 7th, 2008....

Poetry

This is a whimsical poem that takes the reader on a sailing hunt for the mythical Snark. The Bellman, the Butcher, the Baker, the Beaver and others named and unnamed provide a fast-paced, almost maniacal, romp to find the ellusive Snark. In the reading, you begin to suspect that Dr. Seuss may have found some inspiration from Carroll. The reading is a fast ride of thirty minutes and is suitable for children and adults alike. (Review written by Robert Garrison)...

Poetry

Chamber Music is a collection of poems by James Joyce, first published in May of 1907. The collection originally comprised thirty-four love poems, but two further poems were added before publication (All day I hear the noise of waters and I hear an army charging upon the land). Although the poems did not sell well, they received some critical acclaim. Ezra Pound admired the delicate temperament of these early poems, while Yeats described I hear an army charging upon the land as a technical and emotional masterpiece. In 1909, Joyce wrote to his wife, When I wrote [Chamber Music], I was a lonely boy, walking about by myself at night and thinking that one day a girl would love me. Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Annie Coleman...

Poetry

The Ars Poetica, by Horace, also known as Epistula ad Pisones, is a treatise on poetry written in the form of a letter, and published around 18 B.C. In it, Horace defines and exemplifies the nature, scope and correct way of writing poetry. This work, inspired by the book of the same name by Aristotle, is one of the most influential in Latin literature, and the source of famous concepts in poetics, such as in medias res and ut pictura poesis. The text itself is a poem in 476 dactilic hexameters.The Carmen Saeculare, or Song of the Ages, is a hymn written by Horace in 17 b.C. for the Ludi saeculares of the same year. It is believed that the poem was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus and sung by a choir of young men and women during the opening ceremony of the Games of the Century, a religious celebration that happened in Rome once every saeculum (century). The saeculum was considered to be the maximum length of a human life, which means the Games happened once every generation. The poem was written is nineteen sapphic stanzas, and in an elevated and religious tone. (Summary by Leni)...

Poetry

This poem tells a story that begins in 1823 - just after the Leavenworth campaign against the Arikara Indians - and follows an expedition of Major Andrew Henry during a series of arduous journeys over the Trans-Missouri region. The poem focuses upon the relationship between two trappers - Hugh Glass and Jamie - who, after fighting and hunting together, consequently develop a close friendship. The poem revolves around the betrayal of Hugh by Jamie: who leaves Hugh alone as good as dead to die by the Missouri. But Hugh lives - and recovers against all odds, pushing on with murderous intent to track down the ex-friend who left him helpless and expiring. The final canto describes the moving denouement: Hugh and Jamie both are forced to recognize their own weaknesses, and then come to terms with the implications of their individual realizations. (Introduction by Godsend)...

Fiction, Poetry

The Hunting of the Snark is a long nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll describing the adventures of ten weirdly assorted characters as they pursue an elusive creature known as a snark. (Summary by Shawn Craig Smith)...

Poetry, Humor

volunteers bring you 23 recordings of Upon His Mistress Dancing by James Shirley. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January, 15, 2012. James Shirley (sometimes spelt Sherley) was a prolific English playwright and poet who was active in the first half of the seventeenth century. (Summary by Lucy Perry)...

Poetry, Romance

volunteers bring you 17 recordings of O Hollow Hollow Hollow by W.S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 8, 2012. Here is a poem by the fleshly poet, Bunthorne, from the opera Patience, by Gilbert and Sullivan. Who better to introduce it than the poet himself: BUNTHORNE. It is a wild, weird, fleshy thing; yet very tender, very yearning, very precious. It is called, Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow! PATIENCE Is it a hunting song? BUNTHORNE. A hunting song? No, it is not a hunting song. It is the wail of the poet's heart on discovering that everything is commonplace. To understand it, cling passionately to one another and think of faint lilies. Bunthorne was considered to have been modelled on Oscar Wilde, but more recent reseach has suggested that this claim is not correct. ( Summary by Algy Pug )...

Humor, Literature, Nature, Satire, Poetry

In this DIRECTORY you'll see just what you never ought to be; and so, it should direct your way to Good Behavior, every day. The children of whose faults I tell are known by other names, as well, so see that you aren't in this group of Naughty Ones. Don't be a Goop! (The author's introduction)...

Children, Short stories, Poetry

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Toys by Coventry Patmore. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 25th, 2010.

Children, Instruction, Literature, Poetry

These are the last four Cantos of his mock epic that Byron completed in the year before his death at the age of 36 in Messolonghi, Greece, where he had gone to fight for the nationalists against the Ottoman Empire. Juan, now in England, is invited to spend the autumn with a hunting party at the ancient country seat of Lord Henry and Lady Adeline Amundeville. There, he meets the most intriguing of the Byronic heroines, Aurora Raby, and is visited by a ghost with ample breasts (!). That is the narrative outline but hardly the focus of the last Cantos. Byron is more interested satirizing the frailty of faith, the fecklessness of the English aristocracy, the futility of English pastimes and the fawning of elected Members of Parliament over their middle-class constituents. Booze, banquets, belles and bishops are given the Byronic treatment, while his spleen is reserved for his critics and for tyranny. (Summary by Peter Gallagher)...

Adventure, Fiction, Myths/Legends, Poetry, Romance

volunteers bring you 23 recordings of A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea by Allan Cunningham. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 4, 2012. Allan Cunningham was a Scottish poet and author. Cunningham was apprenticed to a stonemason, but gave his leisure to reading and writing imitations of old Scottish ballads. His prose is often spoiled by its misplaced and too ambitious rhetoric; his verse also is ornate, and both are full of mannerisms. Some of his songs, however, hold a high place among British lyrics. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea is one of the best British sea-songs, although written by a landsman.(Summary by Wikipedia)...

Adventure, Music, Nature, Sea stories, Travel, Poetry

volunteers bring you 19 recordings of The Window on the Hill by Madison Julius Cawein. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 22, 2012. Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the fifth child of William and Christiana (Stelsly) Cawein. His father made patent medicines from herbs. Cawein thus became acquainted with and developed a love for local nature as a child. After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the Keats of Kentucky. He was popular enough that, by 1900, he told the Louisville Courier-Journal that his income from publishing poetry in magazines amounted to about $100 a month...

Nature, Romance, Poetry