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Voices Of 20th Century Poets Come Alive Once More

Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room is home to thousands of archived recordings from some of the most important English language-poets of the age — T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost. (Curt Nickisch/WBUR)
Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room is home to thousands of archived recordings from some of the most important English language-poets of the age — T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Robert Frost. (Curt Nickisch/WBUR)

Imagine being at a family reunion and someone pulls out a sound recording of a grandparent you barely knew. Or an uncle you’d only heard stories about.

That rare, personal discovery is something that poetry researchers at Harvard are now experiencing, thanks to a new technology that is bringing the voices of poets — silent for most of a century — back to life.

From the Here & Now Contributors Network, Curt Nickisch of WBUR reports.

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