Pliny also left a detailed picture of the amateur literary world with its custom of reciting works to seek critical revision from friends.
With an open book in one hand, the other clutched to her chest, she recited work from memory.
At the height of his career, Yevgeny Yevtushenko packed crowds of 50,000 people into stadiums where he recited work like "Babi Yar," a poem on the Holocaust.
He started reciting new work: "Arrogance is the demon that will kill us, before the white men, before the drive-bys..."...
The 30,000-volume nonlending library, including a children's collection and two listening rooms where visitors can hear recordings of poets reciting their work, is open to the public.
Recent victims have included not just members of the security forces, who are often targeted, but Egyptian labourers, a French engineer and a much-loved local poet famous for publicly reciting his work during the revolution.
Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Gillian Clarke, John Agard, Imtiaz Dharker and Daljit Nigra, among others, have been on tour since December, visiting assembly rooms and civic halls, corn exchanges and theatres, reciting their work to schoolchildren from Plymouth to Newcastle.
Written renderings of Mr. Ancona's poems include the 1990 book "Malidittu la Lingua" ("Damned Language"), a bilingual edition with translations by Gaetano Cipolla and accompanying cassette recordings of Mr. Ancona reciting his work.
Our readers could hear from first-time voters, or listen to the music of the teenagers who are shaping pop, as well as listen to our recurring series of New Yorker poets and authors reciting their work from the magazine.
