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This audio guide contains distinguished actors and poets reading and speaking about poetry. Listen to these tracks to help you or your students master the art of recitation.

Introduction

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The power of poetry

BY DANA GIOIA
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“Jenny Kiss’d Me”

BY LEIGH HUNT
Read by Kay Ryan
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“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Read by Anthony Hopkins
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“We Wear the Mask”

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
Read by Rita Dove
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“Fire and Ice”

BY ROBERT FROST
Read by N. Scott Momaday
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“The Good-Morrow”

BY JOHN DONNE
Read by David Mason
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“anyone lived in a pretty how town”

BY E. E. CUMMINGS
Read by David Mason
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“Pied Beauty”

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Read by Kay Ryan
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Conveying emotion, with excerpts from Hamlet

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“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

BY DYLAN THOMAS
Read by Alfred Molina
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“The World Is Too Much with Us”

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Read by Angela Lansbury
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“Fern Hill”

BY DYLAN THOMAS
Read by Anthony Hopkins
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Punching words

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“Ozymandias”

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Read by N. Scott Momaday
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Kay Ryan remembers her grandmother

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N. Scott Momaday remembers his parents

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David Mason on knowing poems by heart

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“Hope is the thing with feathers”

BY EMILY DICKINSON
Read by David Henry Hwang
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“When You Are Old”

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Read by Diane Thiel
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“The Road Not Taken”

BY ROBERT FROST
Read by Dana Gioia
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“Sonnet 55”

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Read by James Earl Jones
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“When I Have Fears”

BY JOHN KEATS
Read by Rita Dove
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“To My Dear and Loving Husband”

BY ANNE BRADSTREET
Read by Alyssa Milano
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“I think I should have loved you presently”

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Read by Alyssa Milano
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“Dream Deferred (Harlem)”

BY LANGSTON HUGHES
Read by Khandi Alexander
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“I Hear America Singing”

BY WALT WHITMAN
Read by Richard Rodriguez
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From “Annabel Lee”

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
Read by Khandi Alexander
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“The Unknown Citizen”

BY W. H. AUDEN
Read by Alfred Molina
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“Miniver Cheevy”

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Read by David Mason
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“My Last Duchess”

BY ROBERT BROWNING
Read by Alfred Molina
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“Dover Beach”

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD
Read by Angela Lansbury
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“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

BY WALLACE STEVENS
Read by N. Scott Momaday
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“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died”

BY EMILY DICKINSON
Read by Kay Ryan
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“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

BY T. S. ELIOT
Read by Anthony Hopkins
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Credits

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