The Voice of the Poet - John Ashberry (Book)

THE VOICE OF THE POET
A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings on cassette and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliograohy, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of "The Yale Review."
"Hearing poetry spoken by the poet is always a unique illumination. This series opens our ears to some of the most passionate utterances and enthralling performances ever recorded."--Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner, Poetry
"There has been a great need for a well-edited audio series for poetry, with high literary and technical quality. J. D. McClatchy has filled this need with great style."--Robert Pinsky
John Ashbery is America's most acclaimed living poet, and his work has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, all in 1976; in 1985 he won the Bollingen Prize. "Paradigms of common experience" is Ashbery's label for his own poems: the mind listening for its haphazard memories and unconscious desires while hearing the world's buzzing distractions. An Ashbery poem can sound alternatively daffy or romantic, disjunctive or satiric. Its surface may seem enigmatic, but its task remains constant--to explore how we recieve information and make meanings, then how those meanings are transformed: pop culture and high romance go hand in hand. From the start of his carer, Ashbery has been among the most innovative poets in the language, and he has kept his work open to both experiment and tradition.