Send us a text

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 386 - What Did Whitman Sound Like, 1

In previous years, I have always done episodes about Walt Whitman simply by talking about his life. I did not use the format of me talking in the first person, and asking questions from Walt Whitman because I simply didn't know where to start regarding the topic of what did Walt Whitman sound like. There is a controversial recording of what may have been Whitman's voice, but it is a very poor quality and isn't much help at all.

So I decided to use perplexity AI in finding out information about Walt Whitman's voice - what he may have sounded like and how I could get the spirit of that across and a podcast. So I started with this prompt - and note that - and this is something I will say over and over again - you need to give a lot of information in your prompt to an AI bot even if it doesn't seem necessary to get a good response.

This is my prompt regarding getting the qualities for Walt Whitman's voice, and I apologize for the length. - but you really need to try and be thorough.

I do a podcast called celebrate Poe about the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. It has had almost 400 episodes and downloads in more than 100 countries and territories. The format is that I interview the imaginary ghost of Edgar Allan Poe regarding his works and life. Of course I use my voice as the interviewer, and a Southern Voice as Edgar Poe. I used to be a historical re-enactor as Poe, and use a deep southern drawl - one that most authorities believe that Edgar Poe would've used, being from Richmond and not influenced by such sources as television, movies, and the Internet. And I am from Staunton Virginia, so a southern draw is not hard for me. Now fo pride month - june - and maybe longer - I am playing the part of an interviewer while interviewing the the imaginary ghost of Walt Whitman - using my natural voice and Walt Whitman responding in the first person. My question is do you have any advice on coming up with a voice to represent Walt Whitman for the podcast? Of course this is purely for audio, so I can contort my face all kinds of positions - but what qualities should I go for in coming up with a Voice for Walt Whitman

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.