Lightning Rod Reads Whitman (audio)

[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

[judih]

oh, that was good.
mid-sentence stop caught me unawares
perhaps a part 2?

[SmileGRL]

cool. love the piano in the background

[sweetwater]

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15464

[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?

[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.

[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