<figure class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_99903" style="width: 980px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-99903">The only known recording of the voice of Walt Whitman
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– American Poets – Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow – August 5, 1951 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection

Since it’s one of those rainy nights in L.A. where all you want to do is tune out and not be bludgeoned by news, I ran across this radio program of influential American Poets during the last part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century and thought it would be good to share. It’s not political, it’s not sensational, it’s not cringeworthy, it’s not going to drain your blood – it’s just history. What’s up is the only known recording of Walt Whitman, taken from a cylinder made in 1890. At the time, this was a revolution in preserving the human voice, and later music. In addition to Whitman are the voices of James Whitcomb Riley from 1903, Edwin Markham, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and an interview with William Carlos Williams in 1951. It was part of a radio series, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and broadcast on August 5, 1951.

Most of these poets have faded from current prominence, as styles and poetry itself have changed over the past several decades. But these were historic and important contributors to our culture, and provide a link to earlier forms, which at the time were considered radical to what had gone on before.

The work is highly evocative and certainly qualifies as genuine Americana. Whether it holds up over the passage of years – whether it’s considered the touchstone of a time we only know through photographs and written words and is appreciated as part of an evolution in human spirit and form of expression of that time, is up to the reader.

In either case, it’s history and you may never have heard these voices before.

Enjoy – back to work tomorrow, even though it’s Friday jr.

The post The Voice Of Walt Whitman – American Poets – 1890-1950 – Past Daily Gallimaufry appeared first on Past Daily: A Sound Archive of News, History And Music.