Poetic License
Featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Patti LuPone, Jason Alexander, Florence Henderson,
Cynthia Nixon, Christine Baransky, Judith Light, Kathleen Turner, Kate Mulgrew and
93 more.
This is without a doubt the most wonderful and important poetry album EVER released. Over a hundred of the best known actors in the United States got together to celebrate the oldest art form in the world: Poetry. Artist include: Jason Alexander, Christine Baranski, Charles Busch, Zoe Caldwell, Ann Hampton Callaway, Len Cariou, Tyne Daly, Joanna Gleason, Florence Henderson, Michael Learned, Judith Light, Patti LuPone, Kate Mulgrew, Cynthia Nixon, Paul Provenza, Chris Sarandon, Barry Humphries, Kathleen Turner, Richard Thomas, JoBeth Williams, Michael York, Catherine Zeta-Jones plus many more.
Jason performes Louis Carroll
Patti LuPone
Jason Alexander
Florence Henderson
Jason talks about The Walrus and the Carpenter
A Poem a Day.... When I was an undergraduate, an English professor said, in passing, a poem a day keeps the doctor away. He meant, I assume, that being regularly exposed to the best that has been thought and written is a universal medicine. This collection helps bring poetry off the page and back into the ear, where it belongs, and hearing it read with such skill is a constant revelation. I have not found myself ever, for instance, since I was forced to in college, deciding to sit down and read Tennyson or Milton, but hearing them read has made me realize what I've been missing. This is the best of the best, read by the best of the best. I plan on listening to this CD every day on my commute and saving a bundle on my mental health bills.
Tom Lutz, Writer and Editor-in-Chief of LA Review of Books
OK, I admit it: The first thing that hooked me on a forthcoming recording,
"Poetic License: 100 Poems by 100 Performers," was the short list of said performers in the press release:
"Patti LuPone, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tyne Daly, Christine Baranski, Jason Alexander,
Charles Busch, Florence Henderson..." Just seeing Busch and Henderson in the same sentence made my day.
But then I looked at the list of poems and got excited -- besides the usual suspects
(Shakespeare, Auden, Donne) there's a Cavafy, a Pinsky,
and Kathleen Turner reading Ariel Dorfman.
Boston Globe
Entertainment Weekly
Who said poetry readings had to be stuffy, unglamorous affairs?
Scores of celebrities, including Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon
and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are creating their own verse-case scenarios.
On April 2, GPR Records will release Poetic License, a three-CD set that features 100 poems performed by 100 famous names.
(The disc will be available on Amazon and iTunes.)
Each star picked a favorite poem to read on the spoken-word compilation,
which is arriving just in time for National Poetry Month. Selections include Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
(Jason Alexander), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done” (Florence Henderson), Emily Dickinson’s
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (Kate Mulgrew),
and Edward Field’s “New Yorkers” (veteran TLC host Paige Davis).
Patti performs Emily Dickinson