The poet anecdote project could be worthwhile. My first suggestion is
that it should have its own subject heading on pect if it's going to
be discussed further. I could contribute a Basil Bunting encounter
which might have some interest.
I believe the romantic view of pronouns in poetry is that they all
mean "I". The classic view would be that they are all masks in the
interiors of which, because they are empty, "I" and "you" and "we" can
fuse.
I also met Jon Silken once and talked with him a little.
A friend of mine knew Frost at Amherst. One interesting thing he told
me was that when Frost made his recording of "Birches," he was first
offered a bolstering shot of whiskey, which he accepted.
Some people may find my interpretations of Keats's sounds fanciful,
but a lifetime of reading poetry convinces me that the greatest poets
can achieve things like that. Of course I can't prove it, but I've
long felt that the things you can prove in poetry aren't really what
you should be paying attention to.
My own feeling is that T. S. Eliot's reading voice was effective for
his poetry. Someone once described it as "suitably sepulchral." The
disappointment for me was Robert Graves, a poet I admire greatly but
who read (on the recordings I've heard) in a flat, restrained,
expressionless voice.
Pound on the other hand is outrageously expressive. In his recording
of Canto I, he reads English as if it were Provencal.
There exists a brief recording of Walt Whitman (made by Thomas Edison
on wax cylinder; its authenticity has been questioned but I tend to
think it's real.) My reaction on first hearing it was, absurdly, "He
sounds so American."
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Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
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