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Robert Frost

Robert Frost page editor: Chris Mustazza

PoemTalk #146, Discussing Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," feat. Stephen Metcalf, Anna Strong Safford, and Ahmad Almallah

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes at Jacket2.

The Speech Lab Recordings: Readings at Columbia University, May 5, 1933 and October 24, 1934

These recordings were made during two recording sessions at Columbia University, on May 5, 1933 and October 24, 1934, recorded by Barnard professors George W. Hibbitt and W. Cabell Greet, lexicologists and scholars of American dialects. For more information see Mustazza on The Contemporary Poets Series in Jacket2 and the Speech Lab Recordings series page.

PennSound wishes to thank Lesley Francis, the granddaughter of Robert Frost, for helping us to make these recordings available. We are also grateful to the Frost Estate and to Henry Holt and Co. for granting permission to post the material.

Editor's note: The recordings here were originally made on aluminum platters. They were subsequently dubbed to reel-to-reel tapes by the Library of Congress in 1978. These digitizations are made from the reels, which are stored at Columbia University. I made the decision to present the recordings in the order in which Columbia numbered the aluminum platters, except for where I reordered the sequence to keep parts of the same collection together. Sequence numbers, as well as record numbers, are available in the file names. --Chris Mustazza, University of Pennsylvania

Recordings made on May 5, 1933
  1. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (0:54)
  2. Dust of Snow (0:21)
  3. Once by the Pacific (0:48)
  4. Mowing (0:58)
  5. Spring Pools (0:49)
  6. The Code (Part 1 of 2, Take 1 of 2) (4:10)
  7. The Code (Part 2 of 2, Take 1 of 2) (2:18)
  8. The Code (Part 1 of 2, Take 2 of 2) (3:45)
  9. The Code (Part 2 of 2, Take 2 of 2) (2:47)
  10. Mending Wall (2:40)
  11. Birches (fragment) (2:17)
  12. Birches (3:07)

Recordings made on October 24, 1934
  1. The Grindstone (4:34)
  2. The Runaway (1:09)
  3. An Old Man's Winter Night (1:43)
  4. The Road Not Taken (1:07)
  5. Mending Wall (2:30)
  6. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (0:57)
  7. Dust of Snow (0:21)
  8. Birches (3:15)
  9. Mowing (1:01)

Speech at 1937 Pulitzer Prize Dinner - recorded from the radio by W. Cabell Greet
On the Heart's Beginning to Cloud the Mind (4:13)

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. © 2016 Estate of Robert Frost and Henry Holt and Company. Distributed by PennSound.