A novel way of getting young people interested in poetry and spoken word performance, Project VOICE is transforming old, stale ideas about human communication—at all levels and ages.
Project VOICE
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
The classic poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" was penned by Robert Frost while he was living in a farmhouse in Shaftsbury, Vermont. Today, his home, converted to a museum that is administered by Bennington College, can be toured to recapture a sense of Frost's life in rural Vermont
As the snow falls here in Vermont on Christmas Day, it's worth revisiting Frost's iconic work, a narrative version by the poet himself.
Zapple, Brautigan, and the Spoken Word
The creative energies of The Beatles weren't just limited to their musical innovations. The group shared an attitude of experimentation in their business pursuits, as well as their art. Frequently, new side businesses were spun out of these interests and McCartney, once they had become well established as a band, was the driving force behind many of these enterprises.
One of the first such ventures, launched by the fledging Apple Corp, was the Apple shop, designed to be a place where "beautiful people can buy beautiful things." The short-run lifespan of the shop, located on the corner of Baker Street and Paddington Street, Marylebone, London, was little more than six months—December 1967 to July 1968—but for a while it was a gathering spot for many luminaries of the music scene.
Another lesser known business spin-off was Zapple, which set out to produce avant garde and spoken words records. Established by McCartney's good friend, Barry Miles, Zapple only managed to release two albums, one by Lennon and Ono and the other by Harrison, but some of the recordings in the queue appeared promising.
Of particular interest, and also initially unreleased, was a 55-minute recording by author RIchard Brautigan reading portions of his stories, poems, and novels. But Allen Klein shut down the operation in June 1969, a mere 4 months after its inception. The Brautigan recording survives, released later by Harvest Records in the US, and can be listened to in full on Discogs. Or, if you're so inclined, you can purchase a vinyl version on Amazon—currently $289.02—or a more reasonable Audio CD for $11.99. This was Brautigan's first and only recording and definitely worth a listen.
A glimmering of the spoken word possibilities of the Zapple label can be seen in the list of recordings either half-completed or scheduled, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Lenny Bruce, and Ken Kesey (offering his impressions of London).