Introduction (go to Jim's mention)

Rhino Word Beat's unprecedented In Their Own Voices: A Century Of Recorded Poetry box set touches on almost every aspect of human life, including love, death, the African-American experience, and feminist issues. The box was created and compiled by poet and poetry historian Rebekah Presson, who included tracks recorded from her 1980s radio show New Letters On The Air, which originated in Kansas City, Missouri, and featured poets who recited their works on the program. She also drew from the Library of Congress archives as well as other resources, including some of the poets' personal archives.

In Their Own Voices is another "must-have" for the casual poetry fan and student as well as the spoken-word connoisseur from Rhino Word Beat.



Volume One

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) - America
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) - The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) - The Song Of The Old Mother
Robert Frost (1874-1963) - The Road Not Taken (au | aiff)
Robert Frost (1874-1963) - Birches
Robert Frost (1874-1963) - The Gift Outright
Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) - If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait Of Picasso
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) - So & So Reclining On Her Couch
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) - The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) - To Elsie
Ezra Pound (1885-1972) - Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (excerpt)
Marianne Moore (1887-1972) - Bird-Witted
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) - Recuerdo
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) - Love Is Not All
e.e. cummings (1894-1962) - next to of course god america
e.e. cummings (1894-1962) - anyone lived in a pretty how town
Robert Graves (1895-1985) - To Juan At The Winter Solstice
Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943) - The Opening Of The Battle Of Gettysburg
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) - The Negro Speaks Of Rivers
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) - Ballad Of The Gypsy
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) - Mulatto
Ogden Nash (1902-1975) - Portrait Of The Artist As A Prematurely Old Man
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1988) - Love Recognized
Stanley Kunitz (1905- ) - King Of The River
W.H. Auden (1907-1973) - In Memory Of W.B. Yeats (Part 1)

Volume Two

Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) - I Knew A Woman
Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) - Elegy For Jane
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) - Rough
Stephen Spender (1909-1995) - Thoughts During An Air Raid
May Sarton (1912-1995) - My Sisters, O My Sisters
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) - In Our Time
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) - Despisals
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) - The Ballad Of Orange And Grape
David Ignatow (1914- ) - The world is so difficult to give up...
David Ignatow (1914- ) - This is the solution, to be happy with slaughter...
David Ignatow (1914- ) - Here I am with mike in hand, shooting down the rapids...
David Ignatow (1914- ) - I killed a fly...
David Ignatow (1914- ) - What about dying?...
William Stafford (1914-1993) - Scars
William Stafford (1914-1993) - It Is
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) - Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (au | aiff)
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) - If I Were Tickled By The Rub Of Love
John Ciardi (1916-1984) - Happiness
Robert Lowell (1917-1977) - The Old Flame
Robert Lowell (1917-1977) - Skunk Hour
Robert Lowell (1917-1977) - Epilogue
William Meredith (1919- ) - Crossing Over
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919- ) - See it was like this when...
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919- ) - Underwear
Charles Bukowski (1920-1995) - The Secret Of My Endurance
Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) - Thanksgrieving
Mona Van Duyn (1921- ) - Sonnet For Minimalists
Richard Wilbur (1921- ) - Shame
Richard Wilbur (1921- ) - Apology
Richard Wilbur (1921- ) - Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) - American Haikus (excerpt)
Lisel Mueller (1924- ) - Monet Refuses The Operation
Allen Ginsberg (1926- ) - America
John Ashberry (1927 - ) - Song
Galway Kinnell (1927- ) - After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
Galway Kinnell (1927- ) - Last Gods

Volume Three

W.S. Merwin (1927- ) - The River Bees
James Wright (1927-1980) - A Blessing
Anne Sexton (1928-1974) - The Truth The Dead Know
Anne Sexton (1928-1974) - All My Pretty Ones
Maya Angelou (1928- ) - Phenomenal Woman
Richard Howard (1929- ) - Even In Paris (excerpt)
Adrienne Rich (1929- ) - Diving Into The Wreck
Derek Walcott (1930- ) - Omeros (excerpt)
Gary Snyder (1930- ) - The Song Of The Taste
Gary Snyder (1930- ) - How Poetry Comes To Me
Gary Snyder (1930- ) - Why I Take Good Care Of My Macintosh Computer
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) - Daddy (au | aiff)
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) - Ariel
David Ray (1932- ) - The Greatest Poem In The World
John Updike - An Oddly Lovely Day Alone
Dan Jaffe (1933- ) - Learning About Easter And Passover
Amiri Baraka (1934- ) - Bang, Bang Outishly
Amiri Baraka (1934- ) - Rhythim Blues
Amiri Baraka (1934- ) - Shazam Doowah
Leonard Cohen (1934- ) - The Story Of Isaac
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) - Dahomey
Marge Piercy (1934- ) - Putting The Good Things Away
Marge Piercy (1934- ) - Right To Life
Mark Strand (1934- ) - Keeping Things Whole
Mark Strand (1934- ) - The Way It Is
Mark Strand (1934- ) - The Poem
Paul Zimmer (1934- ) - Zimmer Imagines Heaven
Lucille Clifton (1936- ) - Yes Lord, he was born...
Lucille Clifton (1936- ) - Cruelty

Volume Four

Diane Wakoski (1937- ) - I have Had To Learn To Live With My Face
Michael S. Harper (1938- ) - Dear John, Dear Coltrane
Charles Simic (1938- ) - We were so poor...
Charles Simic (1938- ) - I was stolen by the gypsies...
Charles Simic (1938- ) - Everybody knows the story...
Al Young (1939- ) - Lester Leaps In
Al Young (1939- ) - For Poets
Al Young (1939- ) - A Dance For Militant Diletantes
Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) - Odysseus To Telemachus
Erica Jong (1942- ) - Ode To My Shoes
Joseph Bruchac (1942- ) - Prayer
Joseph Bruchac (1942- ) - Translator's Son
Sharon Olds (1942- ) - Wonder
James Tate (1943- ) - The Lost Pilot
Tess Gallagher (1943- ) - One Kiss
James Ragan (1944- ) - The Tent People Of Beverly Hills
Anne Waldman (1945- ) - Uh Oh Plutonium
Adrian Louis (1946- ) - The Fine Printing On The Label Of A Bottle Of Non-Alcohol Beer
Adrian Louis (1946- ) - The Sweat Lodge
Juan Felipe Herrera (1948- ) - Logan Heights & The World
Carolyn Forché (1950- ) - The Colonel
Edward Hirsch (1950- ) - Wild Gratitude
Joy Harjo (1951- ) - For Anna Mae Pictou Aquash
Carmen Tafolla (1951- ) - Tia Sophia
Jimmy Santiago Baca (1952- ) - This Is Number 26
Jimmy Santiago Baca (1952- ) - I Am Offering You This Poem
Rita Dove (1952- ) - Parsley (au | aiff)
Luci Tapahonso (1953- ) - Raisin Eyes
Donald Revell (1954- ) - The Children's Undercroft
Luis Rodriguez (1954- ) - The Concrete River
Luis Rodriguez (1954- ) - Tia Chucha
Li-Young Lee (1957- ) - My Father, In Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud