SpokenVerse
I saw an interesting post at Roger Ebert's movie review site - YouTube and the Cinnamon Peeler - about a poetry channel at YouTube called SpokenVerse. Here's a little of what he wrote ....
One of the richest resources on YouTube is an extraordinary channel named SpokenVerse. It offers 466 readings of great poems in English, from Shakespeare to today. Their reader is a pleasure to listen to. He makes no effort to "perform," but simply and clearly respects the poetry, with understated emotion when necessary.
Recently one of his poems was taken down by YouTube, apparently because of one female breast more than a century old. SpokenVerse's passionate followers were outraged, venting on a Google group devoted to the site, but YouTube did not respond or explain itself.
The anonymous reader signs himself "Tom O'Bedlam," a name taken from a 17th century poem about a lunatic. I believe I recognize his unmistakable voice, but that is for you to decide. In a posting he explained that he received a message from YouTube on April 8 informing him: "The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violating the YouTube Community Guidelines: The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje."
Ondaatje is the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient. His poem is one of the most erotic I have ever heard, flowing from love and memory, but that's not why it was taken down. Tom O'Bedlam's offense was apparently to include, in addition to the written text of the poem a brief shot of a woman with her left breast exposed.
Tom wrote me today:
"The poet Michael Ondaatje who wrote The Cinnamon Peeler was born in Sri Lanka. I was looking for an atmospheric illustration for the poem, which does have erotic undertones and is about native peoples and nudity, when I came upon this page about the Rodian people of Sri Lanka: http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul/rodi.htm
"The picture I used is the last link at the bottom of the page. I was struck by the girl’s beauty and I thought it would add to the mood of the poem. I saw the picture as very old and charming and not pornographic. Some Cynic defined the difference between Art and Pornography -- “If you can see things clearly and they are the right colour then it’s pornography." ......
Ebert goes on to say the poem was eventually put back up at YouTube. Ebert doesn't say who the mysterious reader of the poems is, but to me he sounds like Anthony Hopkins (but my sister thinks he's Terrence Stamp). Take a listen to one of the poems below (Faith Healing by Philip Larken) from the SpokenVerse pile and see what you think ......
One of the richest resources on YouTube is an extraordinary channel named SpokenVerse. It offers 466 readings of great poems in English, from Shakespeare to today. Their reader is a pleasure to listen to. He makes no effort to "perform," but simply and clearly respects the poetry, with understated emotion when necessary.
Recently one of his poems was taken down by YouTube, apparently because of one female breast more than a century old. SpokenVerse's passionate followers were outraged, venting on a Google group devoted to the site, but YouTube did not respond or explain itself.
The anonymous reader signs himself "Tom O'Bedlam," a name taken from a 17th century poem about a lunatic. I believe I recognize his unmistakable voice, but that is for you to decide. In a posting he explained that he received a message from YouTube on April 8 informing him: "The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violating the YouTube Community Guidelines: The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje."
Ondaatje is the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient. His poem is one of the most erotic I have ever heard, flowing from love and memory, but that's not why it was taken down. Tom O'Bedlam's offense was apparently to include, in addition to the written text of the poem a brief shot of a woman with her left breast exposed.
Tom wrote me today:
"The poet Michael Ondaatje who wrote The Cinnamon Peeler was born in Sri Lanka. I was looking for an atmospheric illustration for the poem, which does have erotic undertones and is about native peoples and nudity, when I came upon this page about the Rodian people of Sri Lanka: http://www.lankalibrary.com/cul/rodi.htm
"The picture I used is the last link at the bottom of the page. I was struck by the girl’s beauty and I thought it would add to the mood of the poem. I saw the picture as very old and charming and not pornographic. Some Cynic defined the difference between Art and Pornography -- “If you can see things clearly and they are the right colour then it’s pornography." ......
Ebert goes on to say the poem was eventually put back up at YouTube. Ebert doesn't say who the mysterious reader of the poems is, but to me he sounds like Anthony Hopkins (but my sister thinks he's Terrence Stamp). Take a listen to one of the poems below (Faith Healing by Philip Larken) from the SpokenVerse pile and see what you think ......
posted by crystal | 1:36 PM
8 Comments:
"The Cinnamon Peeler" is such a beautiful poem, I'm glad they put this back up. There is also a video of Ondaatje reading the poem himself, although the sound quality isn't quite as good.
I've listened to a few of the other poems and I don't think it's Stamp and I'm sure it's not Hopkins. I don't know who it is, though.
I haven't listened to The Cinnamon Peeler yet - I'll have to do that. Ebert seemed to imply it was an actor who's doing the reading .... a mystery :)
I think it's Albert Finney. I know he's done readings of Shakespeare and D.H. Lawrence. Check out this video to compare his voice - starting at 3:40.
Thanks for this post. I didn't know about Spoken Verse on YouTube. Kind of fun. Glad Ebert wrote about this.
Oh, maybe it is Finney - his voice is very similar.
I think I figured out who Tom O'Bedlam is: Terence Davies.
Listen to him here talking about his new movie Of Time and the City and see if you don't agree.
You're right - his voice does sound very much like the SpokenVerse voice. Someone's going to have to ask Ebert who it really is :)
Since Roger just posted about SpokenVerse, and then followed that up a few days later with his review of Davies' latest film, I'm guessing he already told us.
I thought it was Terrance Stamp at first too, but his voice actually sounds nothing at all like Tom O'Bedlam's. I think we thought that because the SpokenVerse photo looks like Stamp as Zod in "Superman II".
As for Finney, maybe I've heard him do "Daddy" Warbucks too much ("Did I just do a commercial?"), but he doesn't sound quite right to me, either.
Since Roger just posted about SpokenVerse, and then followed that up a few days later with his review of Davies' latest film, I'm guessing he already told us.
I expect you're right.
Post a Comment
<< Home