I got an email today from Shout Factory about their box sets for the holiday gift season. One was:
_Shout! Factory - Poetry on Record - Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their
Work (1888-2006)_
(http://www.shoutfactory.com/selection/292/poetry_on_record_poetry_on_record:_98_poets_read_their_work_(1888-2006).html)
As you will see the fraudulent Walt Whitman cylinder is included. No matter what we do, we can't kill this myth. It certainly is great for promoting a set, showing how early they went back to include it.
I wrote to SF and sent them the NPR story on the cylinder. The reply I got was:
Rebekah addresses this in her essay: Of the three Edison recordings, only
the one of the American giant of modern poetry, Walt Whitman, has had its
authenticity questioned. We know that Edison wished to record Whitman, and we
know that Whitman (who was so tireless a self-promoter that he once reviewed
his own book!) would have liked to be recorded. His four-line poem, â??America,â??
published in the 1889 edition of Leaves Of Grass, seems too obscure to be
chosen by a forger. As Galway Kinnell points out, Whitman wanted to be seen as
more patriotic and acceptable to the general public late in his life, which
is why he wrote such work as â??America.â?? Still, the original wax cylinder
has never been found and neither has any documentation verifying that the
recording session took place. Kinnell, who says he is unsure of the recordingâ??s
authenticity, also says that the first time he heard it, a flock of birds flew
to the ceiling of the church he was in at the moment Whitmanâ??s voice hit the
air.
I'm posting this JUST incase any Sound Archives have purchased this set.
They should be aware. The same thing happened about a year ago with a book and
CD set "Poetry Speaks" from Source Books.
Steve