He was an adept, even charismatic, performer before an audience – as a reader of his own poems in academic auditoriums, as a public lecturer, and as a radio and television broadcaster; and he certainly understood, from very early on, the mechanisms involved in the creation and maintenance of a successful public reputation.
In 2005 he was asked to substitute for the ailing Pinter as a reader of the playwright's poems at a London benefit recital.
By the way, I've been a longtime reader of your poems and hope you'll come out soon with a new collection.
Besides, Foster is an admirable reader of the poems, and his Life - especially this second volume - will now be one of the authoritative contexts for interpretation as well as for source study.
Chosen by Yeats's family in 1985, when he was 36, Foster concludes his life of the great Irish poet, revolutionary and revelation seeker; Foster is a wise and ingenious reader of the poems and is particularly good on the relationship with George Hyde Lees and the automatic writings.
Parker says that many early readers of Poem No. 44, addressed to a young man who has killed himself rather than face a life of "disgrace and scorn," would have known that it referred to the well-publicized case of Henry Maclean, a young soldier who shot himself in a London hotel, apparently out of homosexual shame.
Dark-skinned and statuesque, Ms. Rodgers was a dynamic reader of her own poems and a commanding figure at the coffeehouse gatherings that fueled the Black Arts Movement in Chicago.
Without a reader, a poem is nothing.
In "Beautiful Ohio," titled after the last song in the cycle, Mr. Meltzer proves an acute reader of Wright's poems.
For inspiration, you can check out the excellent readers' videos of poems you know by heart, from last year.
