National Poetry Month

Listen to audio-recorded readings of former Consultants in Poetry Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Frost; Nobel Laureates Mario Vargas Llosa and Czeslaw Milosz, and renowned writers such as Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, and Kurt Vonnegut read from their work at the Library of Congress.The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943, when Allen Tate was Consultant in Poetry. It contains nearly two thousand recordings—of poets and prose writers participating in literary events at the Library’s Capitol Hill campus as well as sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory. Most of these recordings are captured on magnetic tape reels, and only accessible at the Library itself. In digitizing the archive and presenting it online, the Library hopes to greatly broaden its use and value. The material featured on this online presentation represents a sample of this collection. The site will continue to provide additional items from this archive on a monthly basis over the next several years.

Founded in 2004 by Matt O’Donnell and Camille Dungy, From the Fishouse is an IRS-registered non-profit that promotes the oral tradition of poetry. Their free online audio archive showcases emerging poets (defined for this purpose as poets with fewer than two published books of poetry at the time of submission) reading their own poems, as well as answering questions about poetry and the writing process.

Over the years a remarkable group of poets from around the world has read to enthusiastic audiences and discussed a broad range of topics related to poetry. These topics have included: the life of the artist, the nature of the art, and poetry's relation to many other aspects of life ― from politics, class, and race to spirituality and the environment. Beginning in 1986 multi-day Dodge Poetry Festivals have been held every other year, usually in the highlands of New Jersey, and they have always attracted a diverse audience of poetry lovers. Recent Festivals have drawn audiences numbering between fifteen and twenty thousand people. Now you can be there with us. Enjoy!

The Poetry Archive is a not-for-profit organisation that produces, acquires and preserves recordings of poets reading their own work out loud. We make substantial excerpts from our recording sessions freely available online through this website.

The Poetry Center organizes and presents some 30 public readings, performances and poetry-related talks each year, on the SF State campus and at other Bay Area venues, featuring outstanding poets and writers from across the literary spectrum. The Poetry Center houses the American Poetry Archives, an historic collection of over 5,000 hours of original audio and video recordings documenting the Reading Series up to the present. Open access to available audio/video at the Poetry Center Digital Archive.