Word of Mouth: Poems Featured on NPR's All Things Considered

by Catherine Bowman

Starting in 1995, NPR's All Things Considered began presenting poets reading their own works. Introduced by "poetry DJ" Catherine Bowman, these popular short segments allowed listeners to experience poetry as a kind of verbal music, recalling its roots as a spoken art form. Word of Mouth , edited by Bowman, brings together the poems that have been featured on NPR, providing a window onto the dynamic contemporary poetry scene. A child playing with...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375713158
• ISBN13: 9780375713156
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Good if not terribly challenging contemporary poetry

If you start by accepting that hip-hop is the only truly living style of verse in America today, the bar is not terribly high for a book of contemporary, mostly American poetry. That being said, the poems here are notable first for being contemporary and second for being consistently high-quality, if not always ground-breaking. The range of experiences, class and ethnic backgrounds of the poets are what you might expect from a progressive NPR show- fairly broad but ultimately safe; the introductions also read predictably like NPR intros. The women poets supply some of the best material; maybe Bowman's ear is especially attuned to irony and pathos of a particularly female type. But most importantly this collection contains many fresh voices and avoids falling back into tired material such as beat writers, with the notable exception of Diane Di Prima.