Audio Recording Poetry Review – Walt Whitman – Leaves Of Grass – Read By Ed Begley

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I love listening to poetry read out loud and I have quite a few audio CD’s as well as a few albums of vinyl poetry. The two independently issued volumes of extracts from Whitman’s poems offer readings with all due gravitas by under-used US actor, Ed Begley (one of the 12 Angry Men alongside Henry Fonda). His booming opening with I hear America Singing immediately draws the listener into the picture of the workers, soldiers and lovers throughout the great nation, as though we were seeing and hearing everyone at once, both up close and at a distance. Appropriately the recordings conclude with Oh Captain, my Captain, Whitman’s commemoration of Lincoln after the assassination. The sleeve notes disappoint for being identical text on both albums, but offer a sense of Whitman as the true voice of 19th century America, shaped by and totally in tune with the momentous events that shaped history and the spirit of the people. Begley conveys that spirit well, and it feels like a performance as Whitman as much as a reading of his text. An MP3 of Begley reading part of Whitman’s song Of Myself Arthur Chappell