THE ESSENTIAL T.S. ELIOT

An all-star cast of poets reads poet and critic Vijay Seshadri's selection of T.S. Eliot's most important and interesting works. Seshadri delivers his own fine introduction, which looks at why Eliot, in particular, is so important to the poets who came after him. The narrators--who include Joy Harjo, Eileen Myles, Natalie Diaz, and Jorie Graham--are acknowledging personal debts to the poems they deliver, and they read as fellow poets, not actors (except, of course, for Dafoe, who played Eliot in the film TOM & VIV). Eliot's poetic voice changed over his career, but not as much as the varied voices in this audiobook, which also includes one seminal essay and excerpts from the plays. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2020]