the platitudes of willful resemblance

I’ve come into contact with a lot of live poetry via “The Academy of American Poets” archive Compact Discs. John Berryman, David Ignatow (a personal favorite), George Oppen, Robert Lowell, and three more collections with too many poets to list. I truly enjoy hearing the poet’s voice reading from their works and I’ve managed a large collection of them – some pretty available and some not so much. All Digital now after many hours trying to remaster off of old cassette tapes. My proudest is my Sylvia Plath Collection which has become exceedingly hard to find. In all I have about 2 gigs of recordings not including some of my own which I’ve just begun to do.

My Sylvia Plath Collection is as follows…

Daddy
Ariel
Lady Lazarus
The Ghost’s Leavetaking
November Graveyard
On the Plethora of Dryads
The Thin People
Hardcastle Crags
Child’s Park Stones
The Lady and the Earthenware Head
On the Difficulty of conjuring up a dryad
Green Rock, Winthrop Bay
On the Decline of Oracles
The Goring
Ouija
The Beggars
Sculptor
The Disquieting Muse
Spinster
Parliament Hill Fields
The Stones
Leaving Early
Candies
Mushrooms
Breck-plague
The Surgeon 2 AM
Nick and the Candlestick (not a good copy)
Poppies in October
Fever 103

short list of some reasons I prefer to listen to poetry:
1. In the Poet’s Voice how can you go wrong?
2. Sometimes the pains intensity makes it hard to focus my eyes.
3. I can enjoy poetry in a darkened room.
4. a good read can make me weep, gladly
5. hearing a poem in the authors voice is like experiencing it again for the first time.

If anyone has any obscure or hard to locate recordings I would love to wrench them from your tight grip. Also trade or even purchase. I hunger for more.

Sylvia part 1

I listen to your voice,
late November,

reliving a moment long
worn away by times
passing
and memory.

did you mean to see it out,
taste of poison
fruits? or come
back.
all questions lingering
and a scar,
a very real scar,
traces round our heart,

I’ll show you if you come to see.
no charge,
no heart beats like ours

out of the ash, we sift
and sift, but find
no more

no phoenix burning
the midnight air.
…

 – Hoc Scripsi

EDIT: poem submitted for the Jingle Poetry Theme of Dreams Visions and Reveries because I’ve visions of Sylvia at times when writing and feel that connection (especially this last one) and at times I dream of her. Is it cheating?