Rating: 
Summary: Poetry inspires poetry
Review: The poets in this volume were listed in another review. I am here simply copying the list. Lord Tennyson; Robert Browning; Walt Whitman; William Butler Yeats; Gertrude Stein; Robert Frost; Carl Sandburg; Wallace Stevens; William Carlos Williams; Ezra Pound; H.D.; Robinson Jeffers; John Crowe Ransom; T.S. Eliot; Edna St. Vincent Millay; Dorothy Parker; e.e. Cummings; Louise Bogan; Melvin B. Tolson; Laura Riding Jackson; Langston Hughes; Ogden Nash; W.H. Auden; Louis MacNeice; Theodore Roethke; Elizabeth Bishop; Robert Hayden; Muriel Rukeyser; William Stafford; Randall Jarrell; John Berryman; Dylan Thomas; Robert Lowell; Gwendolyn Brooks; Robert Duncan; Philip Larkin; Denise Levertov; Allen Ginsberg; Frank O'Hara; Anne Sexton; Etheridge Knight; and Sylvia Plath.
There is a great deal of great and inspiring poetry in this volume. There is also mediocre poetry. And I agree with one other reviewer who said that many of the poets read surprisingly poorly. They all should have listened to Dylan Thomas and learned from him. The power of his voice and the range of his feeling move greatly.
I also was not overwhelmed by the various poetic appreciations. They seemed to me too subjective and did not add greatly to the knowledge of the poets under discussion.
Yet with all the complaining the reading and listening to much of this poetry inspires to poetry. It lifts the mind and heart to another dimension in which there is a depth and a beauty to words which can be found nowhere else.
This anthology has enough of such great poetry to be truly worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely incredible!
Review: This book is not only perfect for poetry lovers, but for those new to poetry who have some interest in it. There is nothing that compares to hearing a poet read his/her work--the musicality of verse is much of the pleasure that anyone can take in poetry. The CDs contain a wide range of poets' work, including Tennyson, Whitman, Eliot, Plath, Frost, Parker, Millay, Brooks, Hughes, etc. The book has all the recorded poems printed, with short biographical notes on each poet. Owning a Norton Anthology is great, but if you could only buy ONE volume of poetry, this book should be it. It satisfies every way to appreciate poetry. This book is really for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous gift for the poet in your life...
Review: This book/cd set is such a great idea for the poet in your life. Although the hardback book is quite cumbersome, it must be to fit all the poets and poetry that is encompassed in this anthology. For anyone who has studied poetry, it is almost magical to hear the voices like Whitman, Frost, Plath, and Langston Hughes reading their work. If you love language, you will love this wonderful collection!!
Rating:
Summary: A TREASURE!!
Review: This collection is simply a must for anyone who enjoys poetry or who wishes to learn more about the subject! The experience of poetry is so greatly enhanced by hearing the author's own voice speak each word. I truly found that I was more greatly moved than ever by some of my favorite poems upon hearing them spoken. A new life was brought to each and I find that I am able to hear poems like "The Waking" now, in my head, when I'm far away from the three CDs that comprise the collection.The collection is fairly extensive, including readings from forty three best known and loved poets reading their most memorable work. Included are: Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Edna St. Vincent Millay, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ogden Nash, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke and e.e. cummings, to name but a few. There's even a treasured recording of Walt Whitman reading from "America". Hearing him speak brought tears to my eyes! Along with these marvelous recordings comes a book which not only contains each poem spoken on the CDs but numerous others by each of the highlighted poets. The book, in and of itself, is a wonderful collection of great poetry. Also, there is a brief biography on each poet presented with their work as well as photos. I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in keeping poetry in their audio library.
Rating:
Summary: Magical
Review: This is an excellent audio and video compilation
of a wide variety of very interesting poets. As a poet,
I have often wondered what a particular poem would
sound like when voiced by its author. How would they
have read it? How did the poet want the phrases
puntcuated? I would heartily recommend this collection
for poets and nonpoets alike.
Rating:
Summary: You can hear Tennyson, Frost, Plath and MORE!
Review: This is just amazing! This poetry and audio CD collection (there are THREE audio CDs in the book) lets you hear lots of different poets reading their own work. There's Auden and Bishop and Langston Hughes and Yeats. It's incredible. I don't know where they found all of these different poets. And the book has essays by some of the best poets around. Billy Collins has an essay, and Richard Wilbur, and Pinsky. So you can listen to and learn about the poets you know (like T.S. Eliot or Sylvia Plath) or you can discover somebody completely new to you (like Melvin Tolson). All in all, the best poetry collection I've ever seen!
Rating: 
Summary: Worth it for the CDs alone, but . . .
Review: Visually, this is an impressive book. The biographies on the poets and overall insights into their respective poetry are excellent. The CDs? Priceless. So why only 4 stars? What's here is eye-opening and insightful. But I expected more, and more in-depth, analyses of the poems themselves. I still don't understand a good deal the imagery in 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion'! Well, I don't know much about poetry, and it's probably unfair to chuck a star because a book doesn't live up to my subjective expectations. Really, POETRY SPEAKS is a lovely book and, again, worth it just for the CDs.
Rating:
Summary: Poetry as it's meant to be: heard AND seen
Review: When I stumbled across this volume, I was thrilled, and a little amazed to think it's taken this long for somebody to tap the potential of technology. Poetry is meant to be heard as well as seen--and this volume gives the reader both, and beautifully. The poets and the selections of poetry are well chosen; the accompanying essays, by some of our most important contemporary poets, are enlightening and interesting, and it's all wrapped up in a beautiful package. This would make a great gift for a poetry lover, and it's the book in my enormous personal library that I'm proudest of--the one I leave out to leaf through again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Poetry as it's meant to be: heard AND seen
Review: When I stumbled across this volume, I was thrilled, and a little amazed to think it's taken this long for somebody to tap the potential of technology. Poetry is meant to be heard as well as seen--and this volume gives the reader both, and beautifully. The poets and the selections of poetry are well chosen; the accompanying essays, by some of our most important contemporary poets, are enlightening and interesting, and it's all wrapped up in a beautiful package. This would make a great gift for a poetry lover, and it's the book in my enormous personal library that I'm proudest of--the one I leave out to leaf through again and again.
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