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Five classic poetry readings

Mike Pollitt | Tuesday 8 February, 2011 12:13

Poetry is tough isn’t it? It’s hard to read, it frequently makes no sense, it requires something approaching an attention span, and it’s especially impenetrable on a crowded Tube train after a long day at work. But there must be something to it, mustn’t there? Surely? Here are five online resources that make enjoying poetry a borderline realistic goal.

Under Milk Wood

“…And the dogs in the wet-nosed yards…” Richard Burton’s voice meets Dylan Thomas’s words in one of the most beautiful recordings ever made.

Dylan Thomas reading Auden

“O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time…” More Thomas – this time reading the poetry of others, magisterially. This link takes you to a reading of WH Auden’s As I walked out one evening, while here you can find links to further readings of Hardy, Yeats, Betjeman and more. We couldn’t get the download to work, but if you click on the individual links that will take you to the recordings.

TS Eliot reading The Love Song of J Alfread Prufrock

“…that is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all…” Eliot’s reading voice really is something else. For an interesting approach to studying Eliot’s impossibly allusive The Waste Land, try this strange and instructive site. It’s a little confusing at first, but bear with it and you might find it useful. Basically all the allusions and whatnot are hyperlinked to explanations in another reading pane on the screen. It helps.

Housman’s translation of Horace

“The snows are fled away…” Part of a great YouTube channel of poetry reading, with over 800 poems from classical times right up to Carol Ann Duffy. Good way to sample poets whose names you might have heard, but whose books you’re unlikely to buy.

David Brent’s exegesis of Slough by John Betjeman

“…what? he’s never burped?” The most cogent literary criticism of the last 20 years.

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