15/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 018
LibriVox’s Short Poetry Collection 018: a collection of 20 public-domain poems. [chương_files]
Poetry
15/07/2024
Edgar Allan Poe Poems
Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) is widely famed as one of the greatest writers of all time. He is best known for his works of horror, such as “The Tell Tale Heart.” However, and this is less known, Poe also wrote many love poems. In this collection of forty-eight poems by Edgar Allan Poe we will go through a wide variety of themes, from horror and raw creepiness in “The Raven” to pure love in “A Valentine” to depression in “Alone.” Throughout all of his poems Poe kept a very strong meter and rhyme scheme. This is most obvious in “The Bells.” (Summary by Shurtagal) [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Hunting of the Snark
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 elusive 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) [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 019
LibriVox’s Short Poetry Collection 019: a collection of 20 public-domain poems. [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Congo
The Congo is one of the best-known poems by American poet Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931). It was revolutionary in its use of sounds and rhythms — as sounds and rhythms — and includes elaborate annotations to guide its spoken performance. Lindsay categorized The Congo as “higher Vaudeville” and was famous for his exuberant performances of it. The poem’s imagery is racist, but Lindsay was a product of his time — born 14 years after the end of the American Civil War in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, he revered Lincoln and viewed himself as a friend and supporter of African-American culture. (Summary by Kathy Thile) [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Ballad of Reading Gaol, (version 2)
In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to 2 years of hard labor for acts of ‘gross indecency’. During his time at Reading Gaol, he witnessed a rare hanging, and in the three years between his release and his untimely death in 1900, was inspired to write the following poem, a meditation on the death penalty and the importance of forgiveness, even for (and especially for) something as heinous as murdering one’s spouse; for even the murderer, Wilde argues, is human and suffers more so for being the cause of his own pain, for ‘having killed the thing he loved’; for everyone is the cause of someone else’s suffering and suffers at the hands of another. It is this that Jesus Christ could see; he could continue to see the beauty of our humanity, despite all that we may do to each other, and encouraged us to love each other just the same “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” was published in 1898 and would gain Wilde greater recognition as a poet (in addition to being a great playwright); although his only other volume of poetry, one of his earliest works that he’d published, was also well-received. Sadly, ‘The Ballad’ would be his last. (Summary by Linda Leu). [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Cornhuskers
Carl Sandburg’s collection of 103 poems that earned a Pulitzer Prize Special Letters Award in 1919. [chương_files]
15/07/2024
African-American Collection, July 2007
This collection recognizes Black History Month, February 2007. Two excellent resources for public domain African American writing are African American Writers (Bookshelf) and The Book of American Negro Poetry, edited by James Weldon Johnson. Johnson’s collection inspired the Harlem Renaissance generation to establish a firm African-American literary tradition in the United States. [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Selected Lullabies of Eugene Field
The sweetest songs the world has ever heard are the lullabies that have been crooned above its cradles. The music of Beethoven and Mozart, of Mendelssohn and Schumann may perish, but so long as mothers sing their babies to sleep the melody of cradle lullabies will remain. Of all English and American writers the one who sang most often and most exquisitely these cradle songs was Eugene Field, the children’s poet. His verses not only have charm as poetry, but a distinct song quality and a naive fancy that is both childlike and appealing. That they were written out of Eugene Field’s deep and genuine love of children and out of his sympathetic understanding of their wondering minds is evident from the fact that his lullabies have taken a high and what seems to be a permanent place in the world’s classic literature of childhood. (Excerpted by Becky Miller from the Introduction by Edwin Osgood Grover to “Cradle Lullabies” by Eugene Field, published in 1909) [chương_files]
15/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 021
LibriVox’s Short Poetry Collection 021: a collection of 20 public-domain poems. [chương_files]