Recording of Walt Whitman himself reading a poem in 1890

In 1992, tape recordings of various poetry from a 1950′s NBC radio program was rediscovered by two Walt Whitman scholars. In that collection of readings was a copy of a wax cylinder recording purported to be Whitman himself reading one of his poems in 1890.

Given the nature of the medium and the age of the specimen and the fact that the original no longer exists, it is impossible to know for sure that it is actually Whitman. But there is a fair amount of confidence among people who know what they’re talking about that it is authentic.

Here is the recording in question — (Probably) Walt Whitman reading four of the six lines in his poem “America”…

And here is the poem, if you want to follow along…

America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

Read the story as it was originally reported (with more detail than this post, of course) in 1992.

(via Dangerous Minds)

Read more: http://twentytwowords.com/recording-of-walt-whitman-himself-reading-a-poem-in-1890/

Recording of Walt Whitman himself reading a poem in 1890