Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Back in the 1960s browsing around book stores a person used to find 33 1/3 LP records of poets reading their own poetry. I bought several and always enjoyed listening to Robert Frost, TS Eliot, Archibald MacLeish and several others. Those poor old LPs were awfully scratchy and beat up by the time cassette tapes came along and I converted those I could.
But toward the end of LP-days along came Rod McKuen and I suppose made everyone a bit shy about admitting they listened to poetry. I’m telling you now I listened to part of a Rod McKuen LP once, so shoot me for a dumbass.
Anyway somewhere back there my tapes ran away with a fancy machine designed to play them and it’s been a long time since I’ve heard Frost, MacLeish, Penn Warren, or TS Eliot, among others. Missed it considerable.
But here in my dotage in Olathe, KS, there’s a lady who works at the County Library who was once an English Major. She takes delight in getting me whatever the library has on almost anything. I’ve consumed books on low sodium cooking, for instance, and am currently reading some new Terry Pratchett.
So lately when I got hankering to find some MP3 recordings converted from those mentioned naturally she was my database. The bad news is a lot of it is still in libraries somewhere on vinyl, never converted even to tape. You can find my favorite MacLeish on Amazon on LP for $4.77 used, but nothing even on tape. Or you can get it Interlibrary loan from NY Public Library on LP.
Anyway I got Frost converted from CD to MP3, along with an assortment of other CD anthologies and spang sent them back to the library, ordering more. And today I’ve got another stack she brought home last night. TS Eliot and The Spoken Arts Treasury Volume 1 [6 CD] of a large variety of poets reading their own poetry if they were still alive when recording devices were invented.
I also have a 2 CD set of the Mills Brothers, 1931-1968 I’ll be converting to MP3. Truly looking forward to hearing it.
But the technology is moving so fast by the time I get them on MP3 probably something will come along assuring they’ll be lost to history some other way. Heck, there aren’t enough people interested in Archibald MacLeish, Carl Sandburg, to justify someone commercially to preserve them. Not anyone after cassette tapes came along.
Ezra Pound spent the years of his life after WWII in confined exile because he got so enthusiastic about Italian fascism, entirely because Il Duce supported the arts.
If poor old Ezry had recorded all those endless cantos he penned from 1945 until he died I suppose it would be one hell of a treasury to convert to MP3. I’m probably the only person on the planet who wouldn’t listen to it.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
Vinyl is making a major reappearance in cities as some of the young’uns are finding that the sound is better. Also, as an antique dealer, I’ve noticed that many of the them are starting to buy books again and other things such as kitchen objects that don’t require power of any sort & vintage furniture made of REAL wood that , obviously, lasts.
Though most are still on a disposable life cycle, some are planning for the uncertain future as the smart ones start realizing what’s really happening!
Hi Anonymous. Interesting observations. There are 50,000 wax recordings in the UK and 100,000 in the US declassified now of eavesdroppings of discussions between German and Italian pows in WWII. Going through all that even as typed transcripts would be a hoot but I don’t think I’ll live long enough. I do hope the past returns, though, so long as I don’t have to be in it. Gracias, J
NPR did a segment Sunday on a the new technology that pulls sound from original recordings of poets reading their own works never heard before until now..
Cool. J
Sounds interesting. Thanks. J