Audiobook · read by volunteers
October (Dunbar version)
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)
Read by Alan Clare, Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010), BLRossow, Caliban, Clarica, Délibáb, Darren Greer, Arouet, JemmaBlythe, J. M. Smallheer · 19 chapters · 30 min
About the book
October arrives with falling leaves and shorter days, and Paul Laurence Dunbar gives the season a poem of its own. Here you can hear nineteen different recordings of his October, made by LibriVox volunteers for the weekly poetry project of October 2007. The words are the same every time, yet no two voices sound alike: a different pace, a pause in a different place, a warmer or a brisker tone, and the poem shifts its colour from one reading to the next. It is a pleasing way to hear what interpretation adds to a text, and a seasonal listen in its own right. The whole collection fits into about half an hour, so you can sample a few readings or play them all in succession and choose your favourite. An easy introduction to Dunbar and to the pleasures of poetry read aloud.
Introduction
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was an American poet, novelist and short-story writer, one of the first African American writers to gain a national reputation. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved, and he published his first collection while still a young man. His collections of the mid-1890s, among them Majors and Minors and Lyrics of Lowly Life, brought him wide attention, and his work was praised by critics of the day. He died at the age of thirty-three.
Dunbar wrote both in standard English and in dialect, and his poems range from cheerful and humorous to sorrowful and reflective. October belongs to the group of seasonal and nature poems that were popular in his time. It describes the autumn month in a graceful, musical style.
This recording is a multi-version poem. LibriVox runs a long-standing weekly poetry project in which volunteers each record the same short poem, and the results are collected under one title. This set was prepared for the week of 7 October 2007, and it contains nineteen readings, among them those of Alan Clare, Alan Davis Drake, BLRossow and Caliban. The files are labelled with the readers' initials, and the whole collection lasts around thirty minutes.
Listening to several versions in a row is a revealing exercise. A change of pace or a lingering pause can alter the whole mood of a stanza, and the differences between readers help to show how much interpretation lies behind even the simplest reading. It is also a reminder that LibriVox is a community effort, built from the voices of many ordinary people who love literature.
Public domain
Paul Laurence Dunbar died in 1906: 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