Audio Archive

300+ Poets Read Their Work

 

As much as we loved providing an audio CD for issue #27′s Tribute to Slam, we didn’t want page poets to be left out. The tradition of public readings is central to contemporary poetry, whose medium, we’ve always felt, isn’t the page, but rather the breath itself. Here is an opportunity to listen to poems as the authors intended them to sound, in their own voice.

Any poems that have appeared in Rattle are eligible, and this archive will be updated regularly. If you are a poet who we’ve published, and would like to be included, email us to ask how. We also plan on adding audio clips from recent and upcoming interviews–keep an eye on this page for updates.

Poet Title  
Albert Abonado Apartment 2B
NEW! Christeene Alcosiba What Remains Is Given Up to the Fire
Pia Aliperti Boiler
Dick Allen from The Zen Master Poems
David Alpaugh Strip Taze
David Alpaugh Space Monkey
Arlene Ang Tonsillitis
Arlene Ang A Driving Student Adjusts the Seat
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz Op-Ed for the Sad Sack Review
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz At the Office Holiday Party
Robert Archambeau The People’s Republic of Sleepless…
James Arthur Sad Robots
Matthew Babcock Passage
Kathleen Balma Roadkill on the Path to Salvation
Li Bai Alone on Mount Jingting
Caleb Barber I Went in With My Hands Up
John Wall Barger Three Photos of Jayne Mansfield
Tony Barnstone Jack Logan, Fighting Airman
Tony Barnstone Bad Usage
Tony Barnstone Why I’m Not a Carpenter
NEW! Tony Barnstone The Truth Is That He Never
NEW! Tony Barnstone Young Woman Drinking…
Michele Battiste Once More, With Feeling
Grace Bauer Our Waitress’s Marvelous Legs
Michael Bazzett The Usefulness of Marriage
Francesca Bell With a Little Education
Francesca Bell Narrow Openings
Heather Bell Love Letter to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Marvin Bell from A Conversation with Marvin Bell
Karen Benke Joyride
F.J. Bergmann Uses of Metaphor
Gregory Betts Lingers Tear Gas
NEW! Darla Biel When My Ex Called in Sick
Michelle Bitting Mammary
Laurie Blauner The Hit Man Absentmindedly…
Laurie Blauner Peculiar Crimes
Sally Bliumis-Dunn Meaning
Sally Bliumis-Dunn Gratitude
Michael Boccardo Weighing In
Bruce Bond Boo
Jan Bottiglieri Dear Atlas,
Russell Bradbury-Carlin Rooms Change When We Argue
Amanda J. Bradley To Thomas Pynchon Regarding...
Myra Binns Bridgforth 3PM Clients Must Not Be Boring
Traci Brimhall At a Party on Ellis Island, Watching…
J. Scott Brownlee City Limits
Grace Bruenderman Piraha
Andrea Hollander Budy Eating Mashed Potatoes
Andrea Hollander Budy Delta Flight 1152
Andrea Hollander Budy Field Hospital
Chris Bullard Back Story
Jane Byers Baseball
Allison Campbell What to Know
Marlon O. Carey Every Element Is Relevant
Wendy Taylor Carlisle Circus
Pablo Garcia Casado Dinner (tr. by Chris Michalski, performed by The CS Field Trio)
Grace Cavalieri Why They Stayed Together
David Cavanagh Fugue
David Cazden The Joy of Cooking School
Sam Cheuk Dramaturgy
NEW! Rohan Chhetri Not the Exception
Teresa Mei Chuc Playground
Antonia Clark Famous Last Words
Martha Clarkson How She Described Her Ex-Husband…
Thomas Cochran Fishing
Cathryn Cofell Leaves of Grass/Suicide/Psychic Hotlines
Brendan Constantine So God Will Know You
Anne Coray Call it Love
Anne Coray Letter From a Brother
Claudia Cortese Sarah’s Mother Makes Her Long Dresses…
Nina Corwin Speaking of Tongues
Steven Coughlin Another City
Hope Coulter Morning Haul
Chris Crawford So Gay
Kelly Cressio-Moeller Waiting for Charon in the ER
Barbara Crooker The Fifties
Barbara Crooker Question Mark and the Mysterians
Nika Cruz Under the Shadows
Paul F. Cummins Undercover
Jim Daniels Lip Gloss, Belgium
Carol V. Davis Salt
David M. deLeon Not Everything I Do Is Magic
Paul Dickey Wheat State Salvation
Michael Diebert Retail
Kim Dower Why People Really Have Dogs
Caitlin Doyle Backward Sonnet for a Forward Thinker
James Doyle The Flippant Zeitgeist
Stevie Edwards What I Mean by Ruin Is…
Sally Ehrman Magic on the Other Side of This
Meaghan Elliott How to Drown Kittens in 1958
Ray Emanuel 4% of Everything or Nothing
NEW! Alejandro Escudé Précis
Anna Evans Crash
Anna Evans Feeling Compassion for Others
Joseph Fasano Mahler in New York
Joseph Fasano North Country
Patricia Fargnoli Fun
Michael Ferris Think of the Children!
Brian Fitzpatrick Sleep Half Sleep (Silence) with Reasons
Charlene Fix Dear FSG
Linda Nemec Foster Playground
Linda Nemec Foster The Dream of Trees
Drew Foti-Straus Film Color, 1950
Alan Fox Silk Woman
Matthew Gavin Frank After Senza Titolo, 1964
Cal Freeman Farrier
Joy Gaines Friedler Assisted Living
Katie F-S Two Bits
Peter Funk The Town Drunk’s Last Stand
Gary Gach Haiku
Jeannine Hall Gailey I Forgot to Tell You the Most Important…
Jeannine Hall Gailey Advice Given to Me Before My Wedding
Kay Putney Gantt What Difference Could We Make
Conrad Geller The Coyote in the Graveyard
NEW! Kristin George Bagnadov Holding Light
Dan Gerber On My Seventieth Birthday
Maria Mazziotti Gillan Shame Is the Dress I Wear
Maria Mazziotti Gillan The Cedar Keepsake Box
Valentina Gnup We Speak of August
Idris Goodwin Why Do They Call Bill Clinton the First…
Myles Gordon The Beat Goes On
Jack Granath After the Japanese
NEW! Chris Green My Brother Buries His Dog
Timothy Green Cooking Dinner
Sonia Greenfield Sago, West Virginia
Albert Haley Barcelona
Sam Hamill Eyes Wide Open (credits)
Sam Hamill On Being Invited to Submit…
francine j. harris Katherine with the lazy eye. short…
Mark D. Hart Incompetence
Lola Haskins The Fruit Detective
Lola Haskins Creek Light
Robert Haynes On the Rule of SB-1070
Jamey Hecht First Divorce
Susan L. Helwig What Need or Duty
Donna C. Henderson Tinnitus
Donna Henderson Shenpa
Patrick Hicks Sitting on the Berlin Wall
David James How to Make Amends
David James The Famous Outlaw
Lesley Jenike A Golden Retirement
Luke Johnson The Hearth, Like a Bocce Ball
Allan Johnston Waitress
NEW! Zilka Joseph Puzzle
NEW! Zilka Joseph Waiting Inside
Bo Juyi Springtime in Loyang
Courtney Kampa Avante-Garde
Courtney Kampa The Miscarriage
Courtney Kampa Self-Portrait by Someone Else
Sean Karns Jar of Pennies
Sara E. Lamers November
NEW! Eugenia Leigh Destination: Beautiful
M.L. Liebler Underneath My American Face
Diane Lockward The Mathematics of Your Leaving
Sandy Longhorn Self-Portrait: November
Gregory Loselle from The Whole of Him Collected, #10
Alison Luterman Say Yes to the Dress
Alison Luterman Big Naked Man
M While My Mother Rots in Memory Care…
M Salt
M To a Husband Saved by Death at 48
Taylor Mali What Teachers Make
Charles Manis Flu Season and A Living Will
David T. Manning Not My World
Michelle Margolis The Blessings of Dreams
Bruce McBirney Midnight
Glenn McKee A Beauty Spot
Glenn McKee Another Night Nobody Came Alive
Devon Miller-Duggan Old Blue
Mario Milosevic You Don’t Know Because You’ve…
Mathias Nelson Dip My Pacifier in Whiskey
Mathias Nelson I Only Dance for My Mother
Harry Newman Early Snow
Harry Newman Primitives
Hannah Faith Notess To the Former Self in Art Class
Judith Tate O’Brien Sawdust
Grace Ocasio Ars Poetica
John Paul O’Connor Breakfast
John Paul O’Connor Beans
John Paul O’Connor Stone City
William O’Dalyfeaturing music by Louis Valentine Johnson To the Antiphonlist
Wendy Oleson Eat Your M&M
Jason Olsen My Best Friend’s Wife
Brett Ortler What the Dead Tell Us About Charon
Todd Outcalt Ont he First Anniversary of His Wife’s…
Nancy Pagh Spring Salmon at Night
Molly Peacock from A Conversation with Molly Peacock
Robert Peake Road Sign on Interstate 5
Joel Peckham Body Memory
Kate Peper Don’t You Miss the Phone Booth–
Jennifer Perrine Home Visit: Danny
Jennifer Perrine Home Visit: Jenny
Jessica Piazza Panophilia
Patrick M. Pilarski Your Village
Marilyn Gear Pilling The Dog
NEW! Donald Platt Caddy
NEW! Christine Poreba Between Missing and Found
Jack Powers Rob Smuniewski Is Dead
Catherine Esposito Prescott To a Hurricane
Peg Quinn When the Buddha Farmed Nebraska
Saara Myrene Raappana A Battleship Examines Its Faith
Doug Ramspeck Bottomlands Widow
Jessy Randall Poetry Comic #1
Jessy Randall Poetry Comic #2
Dian Duchin Reed Holy Cats
NEW! Richard Robbins The Tattooed Woman
Kirk Robinson The Breaks
David Romtvedt American Election
Rachel Rose What We Heard About the Americans
Rachel Rose What We Heard About the Canadians
E. Shaun Russell Archetypes
Michael Salcman The Night Before
Hayden Saunier Self-Portrait with the Smithfield Ham…
Hayden Saunier The One and the Other
Jacob Scheier Single Man’s Song
Jan Seabaugh Czechs Mix
Diane Seuss What Is at the Heart of It…
Glenn Shaheen Feral Cats
Glenn Shaheen Chinese Spies
Lee Sharkey Berlioz
Michael Shea Letter to a Young Bombmaker
Thadra Sheridan After the Bowling Stopped
Carrie Shipers Apology for Being Small
Jinen Jason Shulman Constellation
Paul Siegell 6.22.00 – PHiSH – Alltel Pavilion, NC
Martha Silano What the Grad Students Said
Karen Skolfield Ode to the Fan
Mary McLaughlin Slechta The Hour of Our Belief
Marc Kelly Smith I Wanted to Be
Patricia Smith Building Nicole’s Mama
Ephraim Scott Sommers To Myself as a Statue in Central Park
Lianne Spidel Ambassador Bridge
Terry Spohn Shelf Life
John L. Stanizzi Defiantly
John L. Stanizzi S-Plan
Jill Stein Lunch with My Parents
Carol A. Taylor A Fading Memory
Abigail Templeton U.S. Unemployed Jumps to 12.5 Million
Mark Terrill Ways In, Ways Out
Jamie Thomas 1973
Davey Thompson & Cameron Tully The Chair
Lynne Thompson Overheard at Starbucks
Lynne Thompson Lament: I Am Implication
Lynne Thompson Psalm for Working Women
Melinda Thomsen Major League Salaries
Deborah Tobola Dream/Time
Emily Kagan Trenchard This Is the Part of the Story I’d Rather Not Tell
Brian Trimboli Things My Son Should Know…
Ann Tweedy Nature Essay
NEW! R.A. Villanueva Teacher’s Prayer
NEW! Vance Voyles After
Thom Ward The Invention of How
Thom Ward The Thing in Question
Lesley Wheeler Rim Walkers
Laurelyn Whitt Bunahan
Marcus Wicker Self Dialogue Reading Etheridge Knight
Ian Williams Hero
Martin Willitz, Jr. Pacific Dogwood
L. Lamar Wilson Dreamboys
Michael T. Young The Risk of Listening to Brahms