Celebrate National Poetry Month with 50 Newly Streaming Audio Recordings

Thanks to our colleague Anne Holmes, of the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center for this post. We highlighted some of our favorites in a previous post, and we appreciate the reminder that the Library’s online collections continue to grow. Explore what the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature has to offer and share your favorites in the comments!

National Poetry Month is at its halfway mark, but we’re still in (virtual) full swing at the Library of Congress, cooking up new ways to bring poetry into your lives and homes.

Marianne Moore. Prints & Photographs Division.

Of course, our celebration of National Poetry Month wouldn’t be complete without our annual release of digitized recordings to the online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature collection, and today’s your lucky day: We’re over the moon to announce that we’ve just added 50 newly streaming recordings for your listening pleasure.

First, a little history: The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature dates back to 1943 and contains nearly 2,000 audio recordings of poets and writers participating in literary events at the Library of Congress, along with sessions recorded in the Recording Laboratory in the Library’s Jefferson Building. Until 2015, when we started to digitize the collection, most of these recordings were only accessible to those who visited the Library of Congress and requested the magnetic reels in person.

Now, if I may say so, this year’s digital release is particularly exciting. During this past summer and fall, our Poetry and Literature Center interns and volunteers (thanks to Alia, Antonio, and Megan!) spent many, many hours arms-deep in the archive’s paper records, cross-referencing our database of recordings with physical author permission release forms in our filing cabinets. (If I could, I would post a photo of these looming green cabinets, stuffed with permission forms and historic correspondence between iconic authors, publishers, poets laureate, and Library staff.)

Gwendolyn Brooks. Prints & Photographs Division.

With an archive like ours, which dates back almost 80 years, there are bound to be some paper forms that slip through the cracks (literally and figuratively), and due to rights restrictions we can only digitize and stream recordings for which we have author or estate permission. After a thorough reconciliation, we were shocked and monumentally thrilled to discover more than 150 permission forms previously unaccounted for. Long story short: We learned we had permission to digitize and make available more than 150 recordings than we originally thought!

All of our recordings in the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature are special, of course, but this year we’re particularly eager to add some extraordinarily rare recordings to the online collection—now streaming and accessible to anyone in the world with an internet connection.

Ralph Ellison. Prints & Photographs Division.

Among these additions are readings, discussions, and lectures by many of our consultants in poetry and poets laureate—including a 1978 reunion reading featuring 13 of our consultants. Only a year after The Bean Eaters was published (which contains her iconic poem “We Real Cool”), Gwendolyn Brooks reads poems (including “We Real Cool”) in the Jefferson Recording Laboratory in 1961. There’s also a 1963 recording of Marianne Moore reading and making the audience laugh uproariously in the Coolidge Auditorium; a 1970 conversation between luminary children’s authors Maurice Sendak and Virginia Haviland; a celebration of Robert Frost’s centenary in 1974, featuring lectures and a dramatic performance of the poet’s work; and a 1983 recording of Ralph Ellison reading from a novel in progress (Ellison’s never-finished second novel that he spent 42 years writing until his death in 1994; an edited version, titled Three Days Before the Shooting…, was published in 2010).

The above are just a few treasures in the trove, of course. Without further ado, here are the 50 new additions to the online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature for 2020:

We hope you enjoy listening to these recordings and exploring the rest of the online collection. Happy National Poetry Month!

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