“America” by Walt Whitman
from The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive

      What better way to celebrate the United States' birthday week in poetry than by listening to Walt Whitman reciting his poem “America,” in the only surviving recording of his voice, on a wax cylinder from the 19th century? (It's online at The Walt Whitman Hypertext Archive in streaming RealAudio, not downloadable MP3 format -- but if you want to own a copy of the recording, you can purchase it in Rhino's boxed set, In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry.)

from the 1891-92 edition of Leaves of Grass

• Coleman Barks, “Spring Morning”
• Ernie Cline, “Tech Support”
• Emily Dickinson, “I cannot live with You”
• GNO, Jason Carney & Jason Edwards (Team Dallas 1998), “Superheroes”
• Langston Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Trumpet Player”
• June Melby, “Dust”
• Tracie Morris, “Chain Gang”
• Sylvia Plath, “On the Decline of Oracles”
• Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
• John Powers, “Thayer Street Blues”
• Molly Raynor, “Wings”
• Maureen Seaton, “Caprice”
• Lizzie Wann, “Patricia Said”