Audiobook · read by volunteers
Flag Goes By
Henry Holcomb Bennett (1863–1924)
Read by Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010), Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Jen Kidd, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Karen Savage, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Liam T, Maria Morabe, Sean McKinley, Tyler · 10 chapters · 14 min
About the book
The Flag Goes By is a short, rousing poem about a flag passing in a parade, and about the feeling of the crowd as it does. Its marching rhythm still catches the ear: hats off, a pause in the street, a rush of memory and pride. In this collection ten LibriVox volunteers each read the poem in their own way, so the same lines are heard ten times with ten different voices and ten different moods. Some versions are solemn, others stirring, some almost conversational. The set was gathered for an Independence Day celebration, which gives the poem a festive setting, yet it speaks more broadly about public ceremony and what a symbol can mean to people. Every track is brief, and the whole collection takes only a few minutes. It is an easy and rewarding way to hear how a voice shapes a poem.
Introduction
Henry Holcomb Bennett (1863-1924) was an American poet, and The Flag Goes By is by far his best-known poem. Its form is simple: short lines, strong beats and a series of images that build toward the moment the colours pass.
This recording comes from LibriVox's weekly poetry project, in which volunteers record the same short text so that listeners can compare. This particular project was presented in early July 2006 in celebration of Independence Day in the United States. There are ten tracks, labelled Version 1 to Version 10, read by ten different volunteers, among them Alan Davis Drake and Annie Coleman Rothenberg. The total running time is about twelve minutes.
Listening to several readings in sequence is instructive. A slow reader makes the poem a meditation; a quicker one makes it a parade. You begin to notice which words carry weight and how pauses create emotion.
Today the poem is worth hearing as an example of patriotic verse of its era, whatever one thinks of the sentiment, and as a short, effortless piece of audio to enjoy on a break or to use in class when studying how poetry works aloud. For teachers or families, the set can open a conversation about patriotism and ceremony, and about why a public symbol moves some people more than others. For anyone else it is simply a very short and very compact listening exercise, whose interest comes from comparing performances rather than from the words alone.
Public domain
Henry Holcomb Bennett died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text