Voice of the Poet: E.E. Cummings


A new CD of Cummings reading his poetry has been released: The Voice of the Poet: E. E. Cummings (2005). The CD comes with a booklet that prints the texts of (almost) all the poems, plus a short introduction by the series editor, J. D. McClatchy. The following poems are not on the Harper Collins / Caedmon three-cassette compilation called E. E. Cummings Reads: A Poetry Collection (2001):

  1. POEM,OR BEAUTY HURTS MR.VINAL
  2. MEMORABILIA [inexplicably left off the 2001 cassette version of EEC Reads]
  3. this little bride & groom are
  4. love is more thicker than forget
  5. one slipslouch twi
  6. you which could grin three smiles into a dead
  7. plato told
  8. ("fire stop thief help murder save the world"

Not only does the new CD feature new readings, as far as I can tell, all but three (“Buffalo Bill ’s,” “in Just-,” and “next to of course god america i”) of the readings on Voice of the Poet: E.E. Cummings are different recordings from those done for the Harper Collins compilation. Thus for some of the poems, we can compare two versions of EEC’s performance of the same poem. There is also on the new Voice recording one curious anomaly: after the recording of “a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse” we hear EEC reading “a politician is an arse upon.” Apparently, the editor thought this was part of the same poem? At any rate, a bonus track.  		Voice of the Poet: E. E. Cummings

The Voice of the Poet: E. E. Cummings

“E. E. Cummings” by J. D. McClatchy

Track List
 
  1. in Just-
  2. Buffalo Bill ’s
  3. Spring is like a perhaps hand
  4. POEM,OR BEAUTY HURTS MR.VINAL*
  5. MEMORABILIA [*left off Harper Collins 2001 cassette version]
  6. a man who had fallen among thieves
  7. “next to of course god america i
  8. i sing of Olaf glad and big
  9. somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
  10. this little bride & groom are*
  11. as freedom is a breakfastfood
  12. anyone lived in a pretty how town
  13. love is more thicker than forget*
  14. one slipslouch twi*
  15. my father moved through dooms of love
  16. you which could grin three smiles into a dead*
  17. of all the blessings which to man
  18. a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse [18a. a politician is an arse upon]
  19. plato told*
  20. pity this busy monster,manunkind,
  21. (“fire stop thief help murder save the world”*
  22. one’s not half two.  It’s two are halves of one:
  23. when god decided to invent
  24. rain or hail
  25. Hello is what a mirror says
  26. nothing false and possible is love
  27. except in your
  28. all ignorance toboggans into know
  29. dying is fine)but Death
  30. so many selves(so many fiends and gods
  31. jake hates
  32. when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
  33. who sharpens every dull
  34. open his head,baby
  35. this is a rubbish of human rind
  36. no time ago
  37. who were so dark of heart they might not speak,
  38. when faces called flowers float out of the ground
  39. now air is air and thing is thing:no bliss
  40. crazy jay blue)
  41. because you take life in your stride (instead
  42. So shy shy shy(and with a

* not on EEC Reads

In certain poems the audio version differs from the printed text.


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