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The Voice of the Poet: Willliam Carlos Williams (review)

The Voice of the Poet: Willliam Carlos Williams. Ed. J. D. McClatchy. New York: Random House, 2005. 60-minute compact disc + 64-page booklet. $19.95. It is good to see William Carlos Williams among the poets included in the Voice of the Poet series, which features other esteemed modern poets such as T. S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Anne Sexton, Langston Hughes, and Allen Ginsberg. This packet consists of a compact disc and a companion booklet that all come in a small plastic case. The compact disc contains sixty minutes of material consisting of thirty-five poems read by William Carlos Williams at different times and venues. The companion booklet, 4.5'' x 7'' and 64 pages long, begins with a listing of the poems/tracks on the CD. Following this is the ten-page introduction by J. D. McClatchy. The bulk of the booklet consists of the poems that Williams reads on the CD, and these appear in the same order as the readings. The poems appear in the chronological order of their publication. There is then a brief list of suggestions for further reading, followed by a list of acknowledgments, including a listing of the dates and venues of the recordings. McClatchy's introduction gives a brief description of Williams's goals as an American poet, followed by a biographical sketch, including comments on how events in Williams's life relate to the poetry. Even for those familiar with Williams's history and writing, the introduction accomplishes what an introduction for a collection like this should: gets a potential listener interested in both Williams and how these facts and insights manifest themselves in the poetry. Although this set includes poems written between 1913 and 1955, the actual recordings were made between 1942 and 1955. Compared to the comprehensiveness of Richard Swigg's compilation released in 1993, this is by no means an exhaustive collection. It is instead an attempt to provide a representative sampling of Williams material. The label does claim, however, that there is "never-before-released-material" on the CD, so that even Williams experts/scholars may find readings that they may want for their own Williams collections. As a solid representative selection of Williams's work, this Voice of the Poets package offers a reasonable initiation into Williams's poetry and would be a good teaching tool. There is something invaluable about hearing a poem in the poet's own voice, to hear he/she speak his/her own words. As McClatchy mentions in his introduction, this material was recorded later in Williams's life, so one wonders how he might have read them at an earlier point, a time before he was quite so afflicted by health problems. There are generalities in the booklet that would work well in fostering discussions in the classroom. For instance, McClatchy briefly discusses how Williams wanted to create a new pattern for American poetry. This would be a good theme for discussion as students listen to and read the poetry. The quotes that are interspersed in the introduction and among the poems are well-chosen, as they prompt the listener/reader to ponder critical issues about Williams's poetry and to consider in what ways his own ideas about poetry manifest themselves in the works at hand. …