Casa Libre Class Registration Form | Past Programs | Directions to Casa Libre

Great Poems Spoken
classic mystical poems read aloud

Friday, December 13
7:30 p.m.
$5 Suggested Donation

Poetry started as an oral tradition. Sappho sang her poems accompanied by her lyre, and they weren't written down until 100+ years after her death. The Iliad and The Odyssey were sung by bards for centuries before someone known as Homer transcribed them. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was known for his mesmerizing recitations of his own poetry. His colleague Charles Lamb wrote that he recited "Kubla Khan" "so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and Elysian bowers into my parlour while he sings or says it." There was a tradition in the US of reciting classic poetry at parties, sporting events, and other private and public gatherings, but the rise of TV in the 1950s ended that.

Great Poems Spoken will do its part to bring back this tradition. Poetry is meant to be spoken and meant to be heard. At each reading in this series, several people will read/recite/perform/sing(?) their favorite classic poems.

The theme of the first reading, in keeping with the time of year, is sacred, mystical, spiritual/religious poetry. We'll be reading works rooted in Eastern and Western traditions and in no tradition at all. Come experience Rumi, Donne, Hopkins, Kerouac, Plath, Blake, Dickinson, The Bhagavad Gita, and many others the way they were meant to experienced - out loud.

Readers

Brooke Anderson
Melissa Buckheit
Matthew Conley
Will Cordeiro
Hannah Ensor
Tere Fowler-Chapman
Ramjeet Kaur
Russ Kick
Cybele Knowles
Sarah Kortemeier
Julie Lauterbach-Colby
Allie Leach
Eran Levin
Tyler Meier
Chris Nelson
Kristen Nelson
Laura Owen
Boyer Rickel
Frankie Rollins
Ben Rutherfurd
Rebecca Seiferle