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Lightning Rod Reads Whitman (audio)
Posted: January 2nd, 2009, 12:09 am
by Lightning Rod
this is my very favorite poem in the world
I edited it because it's pretty long (so sue me)
even with the cuts I ran out of recording space, that's why it ends abruptly.
Song of the Open Road
http://studioeight.tv/musicpost/LR/song ... 20road.mp3
Posted: January 2nd, 2009, 6:30 am
by judih
oh, that was good.
mid-sentence stop caught me unawares
perhaps a part 2?
Posted: January 6th, 2009, 3:07 pm
by SmileGRL
cool. love the piano in the background
Posted: January 7th, 2009, 2:38 pm
by sweetwater
Posted: January 7th, 2009, 2:44 pm
by Doreen Peri
Hey sweetwater...
Looks like you tagged about 10-15 poems with a link to your post.
Umm.. could you stop please? Thanks.
One was fine. I'm sure it will get read ... but 10-15 links is overkill, don't you think?

Posted: January 7th, 2009, 3:33 pm
by bennie2
I bought Leaves of Grass x years ago because you like him so much. I don't get it! I've dipped in and out of it. I've read it aloud, I've read it to myself... I just don't get it.
after listening to you drawl through it, draw a line. through it. I like it. Maybe I get it now? Maybe I'll give it the time I've given Neruda, Dylan Thomas and Ginsberg.
I don't think I savoured the words before. I didn't think it that kind of poetry. I heard images (yes. heard.) of trains and screaming and mad infernal. So I read it like that... I never thought to savour it as one should savour all poetry...
Thanks, LR. Maybe I'll go back to 'grass, to seed, back down on my hands and knees amongst the blades there and watch the dirt for gold.
Posted: January 7th, 2009, 6:35 pm
by Lightning Rod
yes bennie, look again
Whitman is the fountainhead of American poetry.
I didn't get him at first either. In fact, it was not until I heard one of my friends read him aloud to me that I 'got it.'
I think that somewhere there is a recording of Whitman reading. (he didn't die until about the turn of the twentieth century and Edison's machine had been invented by then) But it's authenticity is slightly questionable.
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/index.html
If you want to know the definition of a poet, read Song of the Answerer