ARPL at the Library of Congress

“The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (ARPL) at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943, when Allen Tate was Consultant in Poetry. It contains nearly two thousand recordings—of poets and prose writers participating in literary events at the Library’s Capitol Hill campus as well as sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory. 

Most of these recordings are captured on magnetic tape reels, and only accessible at the Library itself. In digitizing the archive and presenting it online, the Library hopes to greatly broaden its use and value. The material featured on this online presentation represents a sample of this collection.”

I selected audio files, edited audio files, researched and wrote biographies of the readers, and cataloged the uploaded files. I worked on this project from August 2016 until May 2017.

Black Box Poetry Podcast

Anastasia Nikolis, Isaac Wheeler, and Sean C. Hughes started talking about poetry a decade ago at Haverford College and never stopped. Now they talk about poems they love with each other and their podcast audience.

Black Box (n.): A device which performs intricate functions but whose internal mechanism may not readily be inspected or understood; any component of a system specified only in terms of the relationship between inputs and outputs.

Black Box Poetry (n.): A podcast which performs intricate functions to explain a poem’s internal mechanisms that may not readily be inspected or understood; poetry elucidation machine.