Spoken Word: Poets

The British Library Sound Archive holds an unsurpassed collection of recordings of poets reading their own work. Starting with one of the celebrated recordings made by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1890, this 70-minute CD offers a survey of the English-language poets born in the 19th century whose voices have survived in the archives. Highlights include the historic recording of Robert Browning forgetting his words and W.B. Yeats explaining how he reads his poetry. Among the other poets featured on the CD are Laurence Binyon, Walter de la Mare, Gertrude Stein, John Masefield, Ezra Pound, Edith Sitwell, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings and David Jones. Rarities include the only surviving poetry reading by Rudyard Kipling, powerful readings by the World-War-I poet Siegfried Sassoon, and Robert Graves.