POETRY SPEAKS Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath

The distinction between book and audiobook vanishes in this fine compilation of readings by 42 nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets, narrated by CBS newscaster Charles Osgood, and accompanied by a biography, text of the poems read and additional poems by each poet, and a critical essay by a noted living poet. The historical recordings of Tennyson, Browning, and Whitman, captured on wax cylinders by Edison in the 1890s, are curiosities, both for technical quality and oratorical style. But one of the delights of this chronological progression (by birth date) of poets is the evolution of reading styles, from the orotund to the naturalistic, with many sublime anomalies. Who would have suspected that Edna St. Vincent Millay would sound as histrionic as she does--while Dorothy Parker sounds exactly, exactly, like the voice in her poems. Osgood's narration may be a bit too dulcet for many of these poets and their poems, but editors Paschen and Mosby and series editor Dominique Raccah, working with advisory editors Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove, and Dana Gioia, have achieved a selection, content, and level of visual and sound quality that will make this a standard resource for schools and libraries, as well as for the devoted lover of poetry. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]