The Poetry Archive claims to be "the world's premier online collection of recordings of poets reading their work". The main page will open a RealAudio file whether you want it to or not, so you may prefer to explore the site from one of the inside pages, like the Historic Recordings page, where you can listen to Robert Browning (reciting "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" and forgetting the words halfway through), Alfred Tennyson ("The Charge of the Light Brigade") or W.B. Yeats (sonorously declaiming "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"). Or if you want something more modern, there's Ashbery, Heaney, Logue, Pinter ..

Check it out here: http://www.poetryarchive.org/

I read somewhere that John Ashbery said—and I love John Ashbery as a poet—he writes to the sound of sonatas or Beethoven or Brahms or Schubert.

While that comes across on the written page, I was surprised and sort of disappointed that it didnt come across as strongly in his readings.

:cry:

Wow! That's a great site! Please post this in the directory if you have the time and inclination!

Done

Now I'm listening to Eliot read the Waste Land -- man, you can really tell he was a banker. Sounds like he's reading off of a ledger

Wow -- you're quick. Thanks, Steve. Complete with thumbnail and all -- sweet!

It's approved. Go here!

This is a good site, not great in my opinion, not because of the content -- which is admirable, but because of the use of RealP_layer_ as choice of formats. Ugh.

Their p_layer_ stinks (people only use .rm and .ram or whatever the hell it is to tick other people off!) and always will. Whenever I want to listen to something and it's in .rm format, I just ignore it.

Anyway, I much prefer a place like UbuWeb, as they place their sudio in free and open mp3 format or PennSound -- again free and open.

Rant over