Tennyson

Browning

Kipling

I have just listened to William Butler Yeats reading, in 1932, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, to Alfred Tennyson reading The Charge of the Light Brigade (in 1890) and to the voice of Robert Browning in 1889 and Rudyard Kipling in 1921.

Not all is old. In 2002, Anne Stevenson reads her wonderful Poem for a Daughter, Adrienne Rich reads several works, as does Elizabeth Bartlett.

In addition, there are CDs, biographies and even a Children's Poetry Archive: A tour de force.

The blog blah blah blah reports on the launch at The British Library last night. Its author was part of the tech crew, and points to the BBC coverage.

It is the work of British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who plans to continue doing for (largely) British poets what music anthropologist Alan Lomax did for regional American musicians: Record them while they're alive.

Old rock critics don't sell out, they get bought out: Kevin Roderick (L.A. Observed) notes that another rock giant turns down the volume (Hilburn to hang up his earplugs): Longtime L.A. Times Pop Music Editor/Critic Robert Hilburn is taking a buyout:

Hilburn's first Times review ran Oct. 26, 1966, about a Hank Williams Jr. performance at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. He mostly wrote about country while a freelancer, then became the paper's first full-time staff pop critic in 1970. He has interviewed pretty much every rock legend since and had good access to Yoko Ono after John Lennon's murder. Fans and detractors will probably argue over Hilburn's legacy (and Bruce Springsteen fixation) at length as he slips toward his Jan. 16 changeover date. I've nothing smart to add, but here's an American Journalism Review piece from 2000 on older rock critics and Hilburn's praised interview last year with Bob Dylan on the art of songwriting....

He'll get a year's salary.

Knight in the city? Wouldn't it be strange if a Providence firm ends up an owner of Knight Ridder while The Providence Journal is owned by a Dallas firm?

Meanwhile, on this coast, Steve Morse of the Globe has also opted out, according to the Phoenix.

Garish ghetto: Some pages' ads are so hard on the eyes, you can't see what else they might offer. I wonder if they could all be convinced to migrate to this page?