I found this gem today, e.e. cummings reading one of his most famous and beautiful poems. The reading is strange and not at all how I would have expected his voice.
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands – See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15401#sthash.hX8aYOSX.dpuf
People always put on a ‘voice’ to read poetry and this is exacerbated by the age of the recording. I have never read any of his other works and this was a pleasant surprise.
E.E. Cummings is one of my favorites. This is awesome!!
I agree! Did his voice surprise you?