Your guides and our reassembled roster of Museletter correspondents got together in 2003 to help you fill in your last-minute holiday gift list with these, our favorite poetry recordings.
1. Ten New Songs, by Leonard Cohen
(Sony, 2001) Quite simply: this is his best album in years. People are using phrases like “oblique... lapidary... austere,” “forgiving, loving voice,” “exquisite... simple beauty... spiritual yet earthbound” to describe the poems set to music here. ~Bob Holman, Poetry Guide
2. Poetry Speaks, Hear Great Poets Read Their Work
(Book + 3 CDs, Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2001) Compiled by Elise Paschen & Rebekah Presson Mosby, this remarkable collection brings together the recorded voices of poets of the last 110 years... from Tennyson, Browning & Yeats to Auden, Plath, Brooks & Ginsburg... with more poems in the book + essays on the dead poets by living poets. An indispensible compendium. ~Margy Snyder, Poetry Guide
3. Dig Infinity! The Life and Art of Lord Buckley
(Welcome Rain Press, 2002) This CD of Buckley’s most legendary live performances comes with a book, a piece of history. Read it to find out why you may never have heard of Lord Buckley but all your favorite comedians and musicians and writers have something to say about him, then put on the CD and listen to storytelling that’s pure poetry. ~Martha Cinader, NoCal correspondent4. Cibola Seasons, Poetry by Dale Harris
(Dale Harris, 2002) Sparse imagery evoking Southwestern landscapes. Harris’s low-key delivery is welcome relief from the microphone-busting performance poets. She is a romantic poet in the best sense of the word. ~Gary Mex Glazner, Southwest correspondent5. Closed on Account of Rabies, Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
(Compilation produced by Hal Willner, Mouth Almighty Records, 1997) This is an incredible CD with Poe’s works read by the likes of Iggy Pop, Diamanda Galás, Abel Ferrara, and Christopher Walken, whose reading of “The Raven” will send chills up your spine. This is the way spoken word should be heard. ~Larry Jaffe, SoCal correspondent