We were waiting for the Word

[melannen]

Okay, I meant to post these earlier, but then I got into this. (Ironic, as today's service was about the sin of procrastination.) Mp3s from "Teaching Shakespeare" and "National Poetry Recitation Contest" CDs given out at the National Book Festival. They're meant for teachers, so some of the tracks have annoying exposition at the beginning. I'm too lazy to cut it out, sorry. YSI, I'll keep them up for a week or so, there should be more coming later:

David Mason - The Good Morrow (John Donne)
Anthony Hopkins - The Lake Isle of Innisfree (William Butler Yeats)
David Schwimmer - Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll)
David Mason - Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town (e. e. cummings)
Kay Ryan - Pied Beauty (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Alfred Molina - Do Not Go Gentle (Dylan Thomas)
Angela Lansbury - The World is Too Much With Us (William Wordsworth)
Anthony Hopkins - Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas)
N. Scott Momaday - Ozymandias (Percy Bysse Shelley)
Diane Teil - When You Are Old (William Butler Yeats)
Dana Gioia - The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)
Rita Dove - When I Have Fears (John Keats)
Anthony Hopkins - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

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In other news, new icons! This one is from the best Star Wars book ever, "The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot," which I found while cleaning out the nursery room at church.

Comments

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You know, normally I'd agree that I prefer the meaning to the sound, expect that it's not true. I can take or leave video, but I love listening to plain audio of stories, if they're read well. But then, we did read out loud a lot when we were little - not poetry so much (except when we'd talk Mom into reciting 'Sam McGee' or 'Casey Jones') but books, books, books. I heard Twain read by my parents before I ever read it myself, and Katy read Narnia to me, and the Bobbsey Twins, and always Dr. Seuss and nursery rhymes. And lots of pirated books-on-tape. :p

And when I listen to poetry, actually, I almost never pay attention to the meaning -- I just listen to the sound and cadence of it. I *love* listening to poetry in languages that I speak, Old English especially.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

erf .. in languages that I *don't* speak. (Sometimes, English is one of them.)

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

Aww, man! I got all excited for a minute ;)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I can pick through an Old English text if I have a really good glossary (like here (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1244229), for example) and I've slowly working through a parallel Beowulf, but by no stretch to I speak the language. Sorry! (Man, I wish I did.)

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

It's not a hard and fast rule for me... for instance, I'm currently addicted to this Prufrock, but I love the poem itself and it might be a combination of the pleasure of recognizing it and thinking along with it, or just Anthony Hopkin's voice, which is really nice.

I love listening to books on tape, too. But even that is bound up in the pleasure of learning someone's voice, if it's nice, and recognizing it, not so much the verbal noises themselves. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about, though. :P I definitely focus on the meaning of what they're saying, although I also love listening to the cadence of it.

We were read to aloud by my mother before we could read, of course, and my Dad read us Bible stories and Narnia. I think that Courtney also enjoys reading aloud more than I do... I'm sure a lot of it is just how my brain works - I enjoy this (Prufrock) much more as I pull up the poem in the next tab and read it at the same time. :)