How interesting: Stevens sounds nothing like himself. That is to say he sounds nothing like the silent reading voice that is Wallace Stevens in my (for instance) head. That Stevens is a far subtler reader, but I can tell that the Stevens reading on the recording was having a similar problem in that he didn't sound like himself either and also reading such charged entities as the poems in front of a crowd (which is an awfully distracting thing if you happen to be a social primate of conflicting urges - shall I run or shall I stay my ground?) especially if such things, such nebulous -are they really things?- as poems, written by, in, to, and for that far more polyvalent, non-linear own voice that Wallace Stevens regarded as the real Wallace Stevens (pleae don't ask him to stand up, he hates it). All that resonance spent on these dry acoustics, these stiff-necked gatherings.

Fascinating archival stuff, beautifully demonstrating the lesser nature of events in the overpopulated archaic Platonic cave that is performance, or, a demonstration of that time-honoured truth: we always sing better in the bath/ shower/ volcanic spring.