Poetry in Person
Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets
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Narrated by:
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Alexander Neubauer
About this listen
This first audio edition of Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), invites listeners into an intimate classroom with eight acclaimed poets: Robert Pinsky, James Merrill, Lucille Clifton, Edward Hirsch, Paul Muldoon, Muriel Rukeyser, Eamon Grennan, and William Matthews. Full of compelling, in-depth conversation about manuscripts and drafts by the poets themselves, plus readings of the finished poems, these historic recordings offer one of the most detailed portraits ever produced of how poems are actually made.
Based on “one of the ten best nonfiction books of 2010”, this audio version of Poetry in Person opens the door to a class run by Pearl London between 1973 and 1998, at the New School in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. London invited scores of poets to bring with them “notes jotted down on the back of an envelope, or worksheets of any sort, even doodles,” for a course she said was concerned “essentially with the making of the poem, with the work in progress as process - with both the vision and the revision.”
Poets accepted her invitation one after another, word of mouth spread, and for 25 years her class become home for Nobel Laureates, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, U.S. Poets Laureate, and dozens of poets at the cusp of their emergence in letters.
After London died in 2003, three boxes of cassette tapes were discovered in a closet in her home, containing recordings of a hundred conversations with poets. Eight of those conversations can now be heard as they happened in this first audio edition of Poetry in Person.
Audio Production: Jonathan Binzen.
©2010 Alexander Neubauer (P)2010 Alexander NeubauerListeners also enjoyed...
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In this eye-opening chronicle, Kushner tells the story of her vibrant relationship to the Bible and along the way illustrates how the differences in translation affect our understanding of our culture's most important written work.
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a sobering read
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-17
By: Aviya Kushner
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The Great Work of Your Life
- A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling
- By: Stephen Cope
- Narrated by: Kevin M. Connolly
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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To know your true calling - your dharma, as the yogis say - is perhaps the greatest desire within each of us. And yet, few can say we know our purpose with absolute certainty. Fortunately, there is a time-tested guide - an ancient map - for discovering and fulfilling your unique calling. In The Great Work of Your Life, Stephen Cope walks you through each step of the journey.
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Jungian Zen Psychoanalytical Retired Meditation Teacher
- By Glenn Guillory, SFO on 06-13-20
By: Stephen Cope
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Where the Heart Beats
- John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists
- By: Kay Larson
- Narrated by: Jason Wineinger
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself - and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. "Remarkably researched, exquisitely written", Where the Heart Beats weaves together "a great many threads of cultural history" (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s.
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Mind Expansion
- By Robert Keith on 04-04-15
By: Kay Larson
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Big Magic
- Creative Living Beyond Fear
- By: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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People of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear.
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Biggest Inspiration In a Long Time
- By Gillian on 09-23-15
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The Elements of Eloquence
- Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase
- By: Mark Forsyth
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In his inimitably entertaining and wonderfully witty style, he takes apart famous phrases and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or quip like Oscar Wilde. Whether you’re aiming to achieve literary immortality or just hoping to deliver the perfect one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don’t need to have anything important to say - you simply need to say it well.
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Who knew rhetoric could be so much fun?
- By Philo on 10-30-14
By: Mark Forsyth
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He Held Radical Light
- The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art
- By: Christian Wiman
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Christian Wiman explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. Above all, He Held Radical Light is a love letter to poetry, filled with moving, surprising, and sometimes funny encounters with the poets Wiman has known.
By: Christian Wiman
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Ted Hughes
- The Unauthorized Life
- By: Jonathan Bate
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Ted Hughes, poet laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet in history, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter writer since John Keats. His magnetic personality and insatiable appetite for friendship, love, and life also attracted more scandal than any poet since Lord Byron.
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Phenomenal thanks to narrator!
- By equinox14 on 06-26-16
By: Jonathan Bate
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Bookworm
- A Memoir of Childhood Reading
- By: Lucy Mangan
- Narrated by: Lucy Mangan
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one. She was whisked away to Narnia and Kirrin Island and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy and played by the tracks with the Railway Children.
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The author’s sarcasm
- By Phil B. on 10-01-24
By: Lucy Mangan
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The Enchanted Hour
- The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
- By: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Narrated by: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
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advice to take to heart
- By Brian on 04-30-20
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Six Walks in the Fictional Woods
- By: Umberto Eco
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this exhilarating book, we accompany Umberto Eco as he explores the intricacies of fictional form and method. Using examples ranging from fairy tales and Flaubert, Poe and Mickey Spillane, Eco draws us in by means of a novelist's techniques, making us his collaborators in the creation of his text and in the investigation of some of fiction's most basic mechanisms.
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big ideas presented simply
- By Ashton on 01-31-14
By: Umberto Eco
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
What listeners say about Poetry in Person
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tiffany
- 03-20-24
Being able to hear the ideas, thoughts, and philosophies of these poets.
The recordings are old and it can be difficult to hear or understand the words being said. Still definitely worth the listen though
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- d
- 08-28-16
Fascinating
I feel like I've gotten to be adult on the wall to sone fabulous discussions - some from before I was born. What a wonderful opportunity!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-27-22
Enjoyable discussions
I wasn't sure what I expected from this book, but it really was interesting to hear discussion about the poetry writing process and motivations leading authors to write certain poems.
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- Chris Wilson-Simpkins
- 08-30-19
Abridged
This is a fantastic audiobook. Downright valuable. But be aware that it contains fewer than half the interviews of the paperback! I bought both, because hearing at least some of the poets speaking was worth it to me.
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3 people found this helpful