'a million bushels?' - Carl Sandburg

April 18, 2011 by Nic Sebastian | 4 Comments

A nice one (and just 34 seconds long) from the Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day feed – How Much? by Carl Sandburg:

I love this reading. It’s so oomphy and comfortable. Except for a couple of lines in the middle, though, he doesn’t use the ‘conversational’ approach I usually prefer. On the contrary, he quite goes off into tonal hyperbole for most of the reading. But he definitely manages to carry it off, in an eccentric mad-professor sort of way that really works for me. He also has music underneath his voice when he reads, like a bird that either takes off into flight or always just might (à la Cin Salach, a bit). I like the whole reading, but the way he reads the last line, with so much music in his gruff voice, is just awesome: “This is the way the WIIIND measures the WEA-ther…”

About these ads