Online Archive To Feature Poetry Recordings

Andrew Motion, poet laureate of the United Kingdom, and record producer Richard Carrington are creating an online archive of recordings of English-speaking poets. The Poetry Archive will include recordings of poets including Tennyson, Yeats, Kipling, Betjeman, and Sassoon and will also feature recordings of living poets reading their own work, including Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, and Harold Pinter. Recordings of some important poets do not exist, however, including A.E. Housman, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence. In some cases, poets were recorded reading their work shortly before they died, allowing future generations to hear those poets. Motion and Carrington said the archive will prove especially valuable for students and teachers. Motion said, “The readings are at once instant in their appeal, and lingering in their impact.”

BBC, 30 November 2005