Poetry is meant to be read aloud.
This is my little poetry corner, containing dead folks’ poetry (for copyright reasons), in English (because it’s my native language), starting with William Shakespeare.
This series began in 2000, when I was experimenting with the then-new technology of online audio, via RealNetworks‘ RealAudio player. For quite a while I read and uploaded one short poem a week, mainly to learn what’s involved in audio blogging. At the beginning of the project I wasn’t too keen on poetry; now I really enjoy it, and some poems now affect me deeply.
I’m not a professional reader, so expect some naïve interpretations – I cringe at some of my early recordings, but I read on.
Unless otherwise noted, all readings are Copyright Bradford Needham. Permission is granted for personal use. For other uses, please contact me. If I have accidentally infringed on your copyright, please let me know and I will be happy to remove the copyrighted work.
October 12, 2014 An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
December 21, 2011 From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
December 15, 2011 Tropic Rain by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
October 8, 2011 Go, Lovely Rose by Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
May 24, 2008 A Night Piece by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
August 29, 2001 Sonnets, Second Series, 7 by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821-1873)
August 22, 2001 Summer Dawn by William Morris (1834-1896)
August 15, 2001 The Mower’s Song by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
August 8, 2001 Among the Firs by Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845-1907)
August 1, 2001 The Grasshopper by Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)
July 25, 2001 The Sound of the Sea by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
July 18, 2001 My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
July 11, 2001 Are They Shadows by Samuel Daniel (1562-1619)
July 4, 2001 The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
June 27, 2001 The Mirror in the Deserted Hall by Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835)
June 20, 2001 High Summer by Ebenezer Jones (1820-1860)
June 13, 2001 Dedication by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
June 6, 2001 Memory by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1906)
May 30, 2001 The Star by Jane Taylor (1783-1824)
May 23, 2001 Written near a port on a dark evening by Charlotte Smith (1749-1806)
May 16, 2001 A Song by Thomas Carew (1598?-1639?)
May 9, 2001 He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
May 2, 2001 A Rhapsody, Written at the Lakes in Westmorland by John Brown (1715-1766)
April 25, 2001 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Sonnet
April 18, 2001 Sonnets from the Portuguese, xxiv by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
April 11, 2001 Sympathy by Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906)
April 4, 2001 An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog by Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)
March 28, 2001 Planting by George Wither (1588-1667)
March 21, 2001 A Brilliant Day by Charles Turner (1808-1879)
March 14, 2001 The Shadow of Himself by William Renton (1875-1905)
March 7, 2001 Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
February 28, 2001 Life (Animula, vagula, blandula) by Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825)
February 21, 2001 Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
February 14, 2001 When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes…. by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
February 7, 2001 On a Cock at Rochester by Sir Charles Sedley (1639?-1701)
January 3, 20011 Of English Verse by Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
January 24, 2001 O My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns (1759-1796)
(with Brad’s apologies for his pronunciation of the Scots)
January 17, 2001 So We’ll Go No More A-Roving by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
January 10, 2001 Winter Nights by Thomas Campian (1567?-1619)
January 3, 2001 The night is darkening round me…. by Emily Jane Bronte (1818-1848)
July 19, 2000 We Sat at the Window by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
July 12, 2000 My Ox Duke by John Dyer (1700-1758)
July 5, 2000 from A Looking-Glass for Smokers by Lawrence Spooner (fl. 1703)
June 28, 2000 The Shadow on the Stone by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
June 21, 2000 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
June 14, 2000 Sylvia by Samuel Croxall (1690?-1752)
June 7, 2000 Love in a Life by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
May 31, 2000 Sleep Song by John Fletcher (1579-1625)
May 24, 2000 Moonrise by Gerard M. Hopkins (1844-1889)
May 17, 2000 Sonnet: To Tartar, a Terrier Beauty by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849)
May 10, 2000 The Tyger by William Blake (1757-1827)
May 3, 2000 I wandered lonely as a Cloud… by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
April 26, 2000 Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
April 19, 2000 My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…. by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
April 12, 2000 To Daffadils by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
April 5, 2000 Brother and Sister by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
March 29, 2000 Let me not to the marriage of true minds…. by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Featured Image: William Shakespeare by Samuel Cousins, 1849. Public domain courtesy of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.