The Daily Dickinson Podcast

Astute readers of this site will have noticed a new feature: audio versions of the poems can be played by clicking the little arrow icon, or downloaded in MP3 format with the “Audio MP3″ link.

Like much else on this site (indeed, like the genesis of the site itself), this new feature has as much to do with me playing with a technology toy as anything else. For a couple years now, I’ve been listening pretty widely to podcasts–from the wonderful Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Minnesota Public Radio shows, to Escape Pod and Pseudopod, to little gems like Miette’s Bedtime Stories and DicksnJanes. Eventually one starts to think one ought to try one’s hand at it.

If you’re an iTunes user, you can subscribe at this URL; if you use another podcast aggregator, paste this RSS feed URL into your subscriptions.

I make no apologies for the quality of these recordings; if you’re brave enough to listen, you’ll be hearing me fumbling around with getting things right–the recordings will probably improve, and if you have suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them.

The music is from Magnatune, a record label that is incredibly generous in its licensing for non-commercial podcasts. They offer a wide range of classical, folk, New Age, and ambient music; if you like what you hear, why not make a purchase or two? I’ve been particularly struck by the music of Ehren Starks and Claire Fitch.

And if you’re interested in contributing a recording of yourself interpreting a Dickinson poem, I’m all for it–leave a comment and I’ll provide you the details on where to send it. You can get a sense of the publishing schedule by looking at the Gutenberg Project complete poems: we’re closing out series two over the next couple weeks, and will start series three shortly. I typically have things queued up a week or two in advance, but I’d gladly replace one of my interpretations with a reader/listener’s version.