"Darling, all night // I have been flickering, off, on, off, on."
This audio recording from Sylvia Plath is awesome for a couple of reasons. One -- listen to Natasha Trethewey read her poems before you listen to this. Just for a moment, which is what I did. I like Trethewey's poems on the page -- but she begins reading in that sing-songy poet voice and I have to click off the recording. I just can't listen to it. The poem stops making sense and all I can hear is that infernal rise and dip of the Poet Voice. (Boo!) In "Fever, 103" Plath reads her poem like she's auditioning for the part of Malificent in Disney's Sleeping Beauty -- her voice is domineering and full of that faux-British radio/movie speech that Americans adopted in the 30s and 40s and gave up, I don't know, maybe 5 or so years after this was recorded. (It sounds a little antiquated even for the 60s.) Even still, her performance of the piece is fiery and powerful and puts so many contemporary poets and their readings to shame. Two -- The dra...