Date: 1955, 1958
"It will be dark out there / with the Salvation Army Band. / And the mind its own illumination."
preview | full record— Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. (b. 1919)
Date: 1958
"Such hectic extremes of gloom and gaiety are, indeed, characteristic of the manic-depressive, as with poor Crabbe's wife; in such persons the superego sits, as it were, like a great baleful cat, while the poor little cowed mouse of an ego creeps about with its tail between its legs; but at inter...
preview | full record— Lucas, F. L. (1894-1967)
Date: 1959
Tolstoy has a "mind intoxicated with reason and fact."
preview | full record— Steiner, George (b. 1929)
Date: 1959
Dostoevsky advances "in the labyrinth of the unnatural, into the cellarage and morass of the soul."
preview | full record— Steiner, George (b. 1929)
Date: 1959
"Look, the fixed stars, all just alike / as lack-land atoms split apart, / and the Republic summons Ike, / the mausoleum in her heart."
preview | full record— Lowell, Robert (1917-1977)
Date: 1959
"And I believe in the spurred flame, / Those racing tongues, but cannot come / Out of my heart's unbroken room."
preview | full record— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)
Date: 1959
"O quiet deed! / This is the breaking of the bread; / On this the leanest heart may feed / When by the stiffly-linened priest / All wounds of light are newly dressed, / Healed by the pouring-in of wine / From bitter — as from sweet — grapes bled."
preview | full record— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)
Date: 1959
"And so my heart has ceased to breathe / (Though there God's worm blunted its head / And stayed.)"
preview | full record— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)
Date: 1959
"The heart's tough shell is still to crack / When, spent of all its wine and bread, / Unwinkingly the altar lies / Wreathed in its sour breath, cold and dead, / A server has put out its eyes."
preview | full record— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)
Date: 1959
"Still beneath / Live skin stone breathes, about which fires but play, / Fierce heart that is the iced brain's to command / To judgment -- studied reflex, contained breath) -- / Their best of worlds since, on the ordained day, / This world went spinning from Jehovah's hand."
preview | full record— Hill, Geoffrey (b. 1932)