New Reviews: Poetry & Drama

This audiobook, which is reminiscent of a stream-of-consciousness poem, is an ode to basketball great Julius Irving. At the same time, it features the storytelling approach of a memoir, which poet Ross Gay enhances in his narration. He knows how to use intonation, when to ratchet up his energy, and when to gently slow the pace. Not everyone can narrate their own words, but Gay... Read More

A full cast from L.A. Theatre Works performs this short play about Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, voiced by André Sogliuzzo, and his invention of the wireless telegraph. The use of antique Morse code and radio equipment gives a period ambiance to the production, though the dialogue often sounds more modern. The format of an old radio show features Marconi's daughter,... Read More

Ross Gay gives the kind of performance that demands your attention. Gay, an award-winning poet, originally published this poetry in 2015; this newly recorded audiobook features Gay performing the work. While the entire program is short, the themes are deep and the insights consistently disarming. Everyday observations develop into reflections of love, grief, and the nature of... Read More

With a little help from state-of-the-art production techniques and veteran acting talents, narrators Alison Larkin and Andrew Wincott give voice to nine characters and create the energy, intimacy, and acoustics of live theater in their presentation of Henrik Ibsen's 1879 groundbreaking masterwork about a woman's personal and economic awakening. At first, the world seems easy... Read More

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Diane Seuss reads her own work at a stately pace. Some listeners may find this hard to get used to, but it gives them the opportunity to think about the poems, rather than just experiencing them. They are a portrait of the author--who she is and how she became that person. Her love of Keats (the man and his work) is a theme, and the title poem is a... Read More

Although her novels overshadow her other works, Margaret Atwood's poetry has won the Governor General's Award--roughly equivalent to the Pulitzer. Her latest collection, which she delivers in this audio edition, includes selections from her entire career and involves subjects that range from the Canadian experience to life as an aging woman alone. Perhaps as a way of... Read More

In narrating the three radio plays that open this audiobook, Simon Vance does not attempt to create voices for the many characters. Instead, he reads the tags that identify the speakers and provides each one with an emotional life. Postwar Polish writer Zbigniew Herbert's plays are mostly about philosophy anyway, so deep characterization is not so relevant. The poems here--like... Read More

Playwright Jeanne Sakata's newly commissioned version of this beloved classic for L.A. Theatre Works is both well produced and thoughtful. It provides backstory for Mary Lennox before turning the dour child over to Archibald Craven, her remaining relative, after an outbreak of cholera takes her family in India. Mary, voiced by Alma Marian, moves from petulance to wonder as she... Read More

Two great characteristics of Billy Collins's poems are their surface simplicity and their intriguing depth. Collins reads them here as though the surface were all, letting us appreciate the language and wit but allowing us to stop and think and go as deep as we want into these meditations on poetry, age, mortality, and many other subjects. Now in his 80s, Collins spends more... Read More