{"id":9455,"date":"2022-04-18T07:44:12","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T06:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=9455"},"modified":"2022-04-18T07:44:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T06:44:14","slug":"poetry-spoken-stateside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2022\/04\/18\/poetry-spoken-stateside\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY SPOKEN STATESIDE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

POETRY SPOKEN STATESIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman Warwick learns more from Alexis Gunderson on line<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Alexis Gunderson (right )is a TV critic and audiobibliophile. She is a regular contributor to Paste magazine,, reading of choice in our office, and Alexis can be found @AlexisKG<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before going on to discuss a selction of best audio poetry books available at the moment, Alexis began her preview of National Poetry Day with a point on which I absolutely concur<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National-anything months, for anyone who works on media round-ups like we do here at\u00a0Paste<\/em>\u00a0Books, can be a real Catch-22. Sure, it\u2019s good to highlight the Best Poetry Audiobooks in the middle of National Poetry Month, but where does that leave the idea of reading\u2014or in this case, listening to\u2014poetry collections the rest of the year? Alliteration, assonance, and formal playfulness don\u2019t only resonate in April, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, while every genre suffers from the fact that there\u2019s just too much being published for even a fraction of the best titles to be given the spotlight they deserve, the capacity poetry has, as a genre, to create cultural sparks with even the slimmest of collections means that for every deserving title we might manage to highlight here, a dozen more might have been swapped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexis, concerned but undaunted, went ahead and offered her first nomination of the best audio poetry books around at the moment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Truly: For every Felon<\/em>, there\u2019s a Finna<\/a><\/em>; for every glittering new release from Warsan Shire, there\u2019s an equally lambent new collection from Ocean Vuong<\/a>. Maybe you\u2019re a fan of Clap When You Land<\/em> and Long Way Down<\/em> in search of a new YA novel in verse? Well, have you tried Kip Wilson\u2019s The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin<\/em><\/a>, or Amber McBride\u2019s Moth<\/em><\/a>, or Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam\u2019s Punching the Air<\/em><\/a>, or even (to age up enough to drop the Y from YA) Sarah Crossan\u2019s Here is the Beehive<\/em><\/a>? Or maybe you\u2019re someone who doesn\u2019t have the patience for books, in which case we might recommend the On Being Project,<\/a> from Kristen Tippett\u2019s meditative podcast of the same name, and leave you with more hours of gorgeously collected short-form poetic audio content than you could get through in a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is, there is no end to the richness you can find when stepping into the world of poetry, never mind poetry translated specifically with the aural\/oral tradition in mind. So while we hope you\u2019ll celebrate National Poetry Month 2022 by starting with one of the titles listed below, we hope just as deeply that you\u2019ll use that listening experience as a reason to seek out even more poetic audiobooks down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because poetry\u2014it\u2019s meant to be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder how much Alexis, or any or all of us are swayed by the title of any poetry compendium. I certainly loved the title of her next selectiom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Whether you recognize her from her Lemonade<\/em>-era collaboration with Beyonc\u00e9, or from her viral 2016 poem, \u201cHome\u201d<\/a> (no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark<\/em>), if you\u2019ve been even a little bit \u201conline\u201d in the past few years, you already know Warsan Shire. In fact, judging by the sheer length of every holds list I have access to on Libby for the British-Somali poet\u2019s first full collection, for Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head<\/em>, you not only already know Shire, but you\u2019ve already got her on your TBR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, allow me two beats to recommend the audio version of Bless the Daughter\u2026<\/em>, which Shire performs herself. Quiet, warm, and almost meditative, the softness of Shire\u2019s voice constantly snags the listener\u2019s attention with how sharply the delivery contrasts with the violence and trauma she is writing about. Just as critically, the pop culture catchphrases of Western teen girlhood that Shire uses to frame so many of her poems\u2014from \u201cAre you there, God? It\u2019s me\u201d to \u201cAt first I was afraid, I was petrified\u201d to \u201cMy loneliness is killing me\u201d\u2014desperately need the careful specificity of her delivery for the listener to dissociate them from their deep pop roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will allow that one advantage the printed edition does have over the audio is that it gives the reader ready access to the glossary Shire provides at the collection\u2019s end. But honestly, going in unmoored from many of the terms Shire uses to build her poems is a valuable experience on its own\u2014and then once you\u2019ve listened to the glossary all the through, the brief one hour and seven minutes will be ready for you to listen through again, new understanding firmly in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Felon: Poems<\/em> by Reginald Dwayne Betts<\/strong>: Though clocking in at barely more than an hour long, Reginald Dwayne Betts\u2019 Felon: Poems<\/em> is one of the rangier, more expansive collections on this list. Jumping back and forth in time, back and forth in place, back and forth, even, in style, the titular poems bleed into meditations, bleed into what Betts calls \u201cEssays on Re-entry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As narrated by Betts, whose sharply moderated, thoughtfully rhythmic pace echoes the formal repetition used in the poems, themselves, the collection as a whole opens a door for the listener to understand, on a more visceral level, the tedious (and explicitly racist) inhumanity that has so long propped up America\u2019s obsession with incarceration. Punctuated judiciously, on top of all that, by Reed Turchi\u2019s bluesy, distorted slide guitar soundscape, the audio version of Felon<\/em> is a must-listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a selection of poetry such as this includes the national Poet Laureate, it cannot help but attract attention, especially when the work of that laureate is \u00b4so inherently musical\u00b4.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo\u2019s work is so inherently musical that, even in the poems that don\u2019t explicitly include snippets of song or ritual chanting, it\u2019s nearly impossible for her to get through a single track on her 2020 collection, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings<\/em>, without slipping into a kind of rhythmic sing-song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That as much of her work in this collection uses jazz saxophone and the blues as framing devices on Conflict Resolution<\/em>\u2019s figurative path down the Trail of Tears as it does the stomp dance songs of Harjo\u2019s ancestors should come, then, as no surprise. Beautifully paced and deeply felt, this is one of those collections where, honestly, the idea of not<\/em> listening to it on audio would feel sacrilegious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if her selections needed more grandeur for validation, Alexis also put in her list the name of a poet who has spoken at a Presidential Inaugurations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After her luminous performance at President Biden\u2019s 2021 Inauguration, Amanda Gorman hardly needs us to boost her well-deserved reputation as one of America\u2019s most exciting young poets. And yet, her recently released collection, Call Us What We Carry<\/em>, is so extremely good in its audio form that we\u2019d be remiss not<\/em> to include it on this particular list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performed with an accessible Midwestern plainspokenness by Gorman herself, the poems in Call Us What We Carry<\/em> capture the current chaotic moment in American (and human) history in a way that is compelling without being overwrought. Longer than some of the other collections on this list, this listen may be best experienced in small bites, but let that be a draw rather than a deterrent. Gorman\u2019s words are rich enough to fill whatever space you leave between those bites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having seen the USA poet Laureate and that of a Presdential Invitee Alexis\u00b4 list I was then very pleasantly surprised to see her include the name of our UK Poet Laureate. I was taught by him in my university days at Leeds and Simon seemed to me to not only poems as poems should be, but also to behave as a poet should behave. A poet, perhaps, cannot be shy and although Simon is quiet and introspective by nature but has never allowed that introspection to avoid conversation and output.  Alexis makes a good case for his appearing on her list.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Alliterative Morte Arthure<\/em><\/a>\u2014the 4,500-line poem anonymously written sometime around 1400, preceding Thomas Malory\u2019s more famous Le Morte d\u2019Arthur<\/em> by some eighty-odd years\u2014is, as translator Simon Armitage underscores in the introduction to his 2012 translation, a challenging text. The tenses shift from line to line, punctuation frequently goes missing, and, in comparison to the magical fever dream of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/em> (which Armitage both translated and narrated in 2009), the action itself is bogged down by dry continental politicking. Plus, it\u2019s so long<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, Armitage has pulled from that chaos an arresting modern English translation. What\u2019s more, narrated as it is with such graveled verve by British character actor Bill Wallis (who died a year after this The Death of Arthur<\/em> was published), the audio version of Armitage\u2019s translation fairly launches itself into the listener\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Armitage\u2019s successfully alliterative lines and the fact that, as a seasoned veteran of both stage and radio, Wallis has the uncanny ability to pull the tenor of the text from sober to mystic to breathless to winking with barely more than a shift in inflection, the audiobook experience of The Death of King Arthur<\/em> is the kind of dynamic poetic listen you\u2019ll want to savor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realise as I read how skilled and thoughtful is in compiling this list. She seems to know what will prove acceptable to poetry lovers and browsers, or casual listeners, alike.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I last curated<\/a> a list of poetic audiobooks here at Paste<\/em>, I wrapped it up by going outside the audiobook box and recommending the digital, beautifully interactive On Being Project,<\/a> from Kristen Tippett\u2019s meditative podcast of the same name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stand by that recommendation today as much as I ever did; On Being<\/em> is and forever will be an audio balm in a hard world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This time around, though, I\u2019m using my out-of-the-box entry to cheat in a different direction, recommending instead Adam Sol\u2019s How a Poem Moves: A Field Guide for Readers of Poetry<\/em>. While\u2014technically<\/strong>\u2014a collection of exceptional poems (from an impressive array of 35 different contemporary poets), How a Poem Moves<\/em> is explicitly concerned not with what poetry is<\/em>, with what poetry can do<\/em>, using short critical essays to tease out how the various formal elements each poet uses invoke intangible feelings within the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performed as a kind of two-hander with Sol on the essay end of things and Canadian poet Soraya Peerbaye handling the poetic performances in between, How a Poem Moves<\/em> is a clever, satisfying listen that will make anyone feel like they, too, can \u201cget\u201d poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexis is so surew we will find so much to enjoy in her selection that will still be wanting more on completing our listenings. She therefore offers us a b onus entry !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulitzer Prize-winning Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday has shown up <\/a>our audiobook lists here at Paste<\/em> before\u2014and with a voice as sonorous and well-suited to the intimate format of an audiobook, it\u2019s no wonder why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His newest collection of prose poems, Dream Drawings: Configurations of a Timeless Kind<\/em>, doesn\u2019t come out until May, but having received a review copy early, we are ready to say: set your Libro.fm credit\/holds list alarm for this one. We couldn\u2019t imagine a better soundtrack for a thoughtful weekend walk down whatever dream-like springtime trails you might have at hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
On air sign background<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you need something else to listen to we can recommend this week\u00b4s Hot Biscuits jazz radio programme sees the inclusion of a feature on Frank Griffith. This includes live and studio recordings, quartet and nonet, each featuring Frank leading on saxophones. Also included is a selection of music inspired by forthcoming and past musicians who can be seen at Seven Jazz in Leeds. These include Tony Kofi, Mark Lockheart and Tom Ollendorff among others. It\u00b4s all presented by Steve Bewick and Gary Heywood Everett, so tune in at www.mixcloud.com\/stevebewick<\/a> and if tell your friends, too, we\u00b4 would appreciate that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the capacity poetry has, as a genre, to create cultural sparks with even the slimmest of collections means that for every deserving title we might manage to highlight here, a dozen more might have been swapped in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9470,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455\/revisions\/9470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}