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Podcasts and CDs

Not to take the momentum away from Hughes' "Last Letter"... but there are two pieces of informatin to pass along today...

  • For those unavailable to attend the recent Ted Hughes Conference at Cambridge, a podcast has been made available of a conversation between Carol Hughes, Daniel Huws, and Richard Hollis. With them as chair moderator is Colin Wilcockson.

  • Published today are two mega compilation CD's by the British Library to coincide with National Poetry Day in England.

    The 3-CD compilation British Poets includes 30 poets from Tennyson and Browning in the late 19th century to Thom Gunn and Ted Hughes in the mid-20th century, reading from their own work, often with their own spoken introductions. The selection features historic recordings by poets laureate John Masefield, Cecil Day Lewis, and John Betjeman; unforgettable voices such as W H Auden, Edith Sitwell and Stevie Smith; and rare recordings by Philip Larkin, Edwin Morgan, and Ian Hamilton Finlay. Almost all of the recordings in this collection are published for the first time here.

    The 3-CD set American Poets includes recordings of 27 poets from Gertrude Stein (born in 1874) to Amiri Baraka (born in 1934). The 20th century was a time of enormous energy and variety in American poetry, embracing such eminent names as T S Eliot, E E Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. The majority of the recordings have not been published before.

    Plath's poems are "Candles" and "Berck-Plage."

    British Poets: The Spoken Word is published by the British Library on 7 October 2010, 3-CD set with accompanying booklet, price £19.95, running time 217 minutes, ISBN 978 07123 5105 8.

    American Poets: The Spoken Word is published by the British Library on 7 October 2010, 3-CD set with accompanying booklet, price £19.95, running time 209 minutes, ISBN 978 07123 5106 5.

    UK orders: Both CD sets are available from the British Library Shop (tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7735 / e-mail: bl-bookshop@bl.uk) and online at www.bl.uk/shop as well as other bookshops throughout the UK.

    US orders: University of Chicago Press, 11030 South Langley, Chicago, IL 60628, USA

    Tel: +1 773 702 7700 or +1 800 621 2736 sales@press.uchicago.edu
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