T. Anders Carson, Stain [spoken-word CD]. Westport, Ontario: Summit Sound, 2000. $15 ppd.
More and more poetry books now come with their own CDs, and while many – not this one – are of indifferent quality, it’s hard not to feel that the time has arrived for this technology. T. Anders Carson, a Canadian who has made frequent (and welcome) appearances in these pages, has had the courage of his convictions and put himself out there in a nicely-packaged recording of his own voice-works. If I might venture a criticism of the production, I would say that there is a certain monotony in studio-based, voice-only recordings, which tends to limit their appeal to a general audience. It’s certainly expensive and challenging to find the appropriate soundscape to back up each poem or group of poems (and usually requires one to find suitably-skilled collaborators), but I think that it can turn a recording into a more nuanced experience for the listener. Having said that, though, there’s a lively honesty and a good store of thought-through detail in these poems which make them well worth a listen.
(3-4/3/2001)
Spin 39 (2001): 64.
[183 wds]
Spin 39 (2001)
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