download that poetry!
So this is where the lower commercial value placed on poetry helps us a little. UPenn has been able to amass a large collection of poetry audio files-mostly well-known poets reading their own work, including a bunch of rare historical recordings, and has permission to offer them all for download, in mp3 form, for free. The website is called PENNsound. (Hat tip to Michael Eck, via Dan Wilcox.)
Now, most of my favorite poets-contemporary slam folks, more obscure writers-aren't there. I'm not sure all slam folks will want to be there-they actually do (or can) make money from CDs and live performances more than books, so the economics are likely to be different.
But it's completely awesome to have this available for the segment of the poetry world it does cover, especially if it makes poetry more accessible to new audiences. Even non-performance-oriented work is different out loud. I expect I'll find some new favorites here myself.
I'm also very impressed by the manifesto underlying the project: This sounds like the work of someone who actually knows how the web works and has really thought about how to make this user friendly. And it might be working: It supposedly has had 8 million downloads in the past year. A hopeful thought.