The Poetry Archive
October 19th, 2008 by Steve BowbrickHere's a little one. A really tiny one in fact: probably the shortest we've ever posted at Speechification.com. John Ashbery reading his dazzling near-sonnet What is Poetry. Listen to it (it'll take you 44 seconds) then get stuck into the Poetry Archive, which was set up by Andrew Motion in 1999 and contains hundreds of poems—read mostly by the poets themselves—and a really excellent historic recordings section with readings by e.e. cummings, Hilaire Belloc and John Betjeman among many others. A real find (MP3).
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