Audiobook · read by volunteers
Mother Night
James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)
Read by Annie Coleman Rothenberg, Chip, Constantinos Neophytou, David Baker, deadwhitemales, Eugene Pinto, Hugh McGuire, Ted McElroy, Kristin LeMoine, Fox in the Stars · 15 chapters · 17 min
About the book
Mother Night, by James Weldon Johnson, is a short poem that speaks to the night as a mother figure, as its title announces. Here you can hear it fifteen times, recorded by LibriVox volunteers for the week of 26 February 2006, selected to celebrate Black History Month. Each reader brings a different pace, tone and emphasis to Johnson's lines. Because the readings are short, the whole collection lasts only about twenty minutes, and you can listen to a single version or to all fifteen in a row. Hearing so many interpretations of the same text makes its rhythms and images stand out in a way that a single reading seldom allows. It is a quiet, reflective set, an easy introduction to a poet who deserves to be better known, and a fitting listen as the day winds down.
Introduction
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was an American writer, diplomat, lawyer and civil rights activist. He was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance and served as an executive of the NAACP. He is perhaps best known for writing the lyrics of Lift Every Voice and Sing, often called the Black national anthem, and for The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, a novel that appeared anonymously in 1912; his verse sermons, God's Trombones, followed in 1927. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, served as a United States consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and wrote that famous song in 1900 with his brother, the composer John Rosamond Johnson. The poem is brief, which leaves each reader room to make personal choices of pace and tone. The collection also makes a useful introduction to the weekly poetry project, in which one short poem is read by many volunteers and compared.
Mother Night is one of his shorter poems, and its title announces its central image: the night as a mother. This recording is a multi-version project. LibriVox volunteers made fifteen readings of the poem for a weekly poetry project, chosen to celebrate Black History Month. There are 15 short chapters, one per version, and ten readers took part, some of them recording more than one version.
For a listener, the value lies in the variety. Each reader finds a different emphasis, and together the versions show how much interpretation is hidden even in a very short poem.
It is a calm and rewarding listen, suited to the end of a day, and few collections make it so easy to compare one voice with another.
Public domain
James Weldon Johnson died in 1938: 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