Listening to Poetry Online

in Literature, Podcasts | November 5th, 2007

shakespearenew2.jpgToday, we have a guest fea­ture from Don from Clas­sic Poet­ry Aloud (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), which offers a great line­up of poet­ry pod­casts. They have just kicked off a week ded­i­cat­ed to war poet­ry, which includes pieces by Shake­speare, Coleridge and Melville, among oth­ers. Below, Don offers a very help­ful sur­vey of the poet­ry pod­cast land­scape and helps us see why pod­cast­ing might be the per­fect medi­um for spark­ing a renais­sance in poet­ry. Take it away Don…

Short, intense and often emo­tion­al pieces of writ­ing penned for the human ear: poems could have been invent­ed for pod­casts. It’s no sur­prise, then, that poet­ry read­ing pod­casts have sprung up like daisies this year.

Most are the aur­al equiv­a­lent of blogs, telling the inti­mate sto­ries of the poet, and often about as inter­est­ing. Some, though, are ded­i­cat­ed to read­ing oth­ers’ poet­ry, and they are worth vis­it­ing for a reg­u­lar, short piece of writ­ing that will almost always stim­u­late thought and feel­ing – and if it doesn’t, well, you’ve prob­a­bly only wast­ed the few min­utes it takes to read a poem.

Clas­sic Poet­ry Aloud (Tunes Feed Web Site)), my own pod­cast, is ded­i­cat­ed to any­thing in the Eng­lish lan­guage which is over 70 years old. Exper­i­men­tal­ly, this week (Nov 4 – 11) is War Poet­ry Week, fea­tur­ing poems from Samuel Coleridge and Her­man Melville as well as Wil­fred Owen and Shake­speare. It’s an attempt to take lis­ten­ers on a week-long jour­ney from the first rumours of war (on Mon­day 5th) through to remem­ber­ing the dead (on Sun­day 11th, Remem­brance day in the UK).

Most poet­ry pod­casts don’t deal exclu­sive­ly with the past, how­ev­er. On the excel­lent Poet­ry Off the Shelf (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), from the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion, you’ll find the smooth-toned Cur­tis Fox inter­view­ing con­tem­po­rary poets about their works, and hav­ing them read and inter­pret a poem or two. It’s won­der­ful­ly pro­duced and Fox’s intel­li­gent, self-dep­re­cat­ing style puts both this guests and his lis­ten­ers at ease. Oth­er pod­casts, such as MiPO­ra­dio (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), fol­low the same interview/reading for­mat.

Cloudy Day Art (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) sim­i­lar­ly involves inter­views, most recent­ly with for­mer US Poet Lau­re­ate Ted Koos­er, but with a dif­fer­ent focus. A home-pro­duced show by Wash­ing­ton DC res­i­dent Will Brown, the aim is to draw out of those he inter­views thoughts, tips and advice for those who, like the ever-enthu­si­as­tic Will him­self, are writ­ing poet­ry, for pub­li­ca­tion or just for them­selves.

One pod­cast focus­es pure­ly on Shakespeare’s son­nets, and is read by a man describ­ing him­self as “some guy from New York” (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). The shtick on this pod­cast is that the read­er was ordered to read the son­nets as some form of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or face the prospect of prison. I’m not sure I quite believe this – the inter­pre­ta­tions are too good, and the atti­tude too laid-on. None of this detracts from what is, though, an enter­tain­ing and intel­li­gent lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence.

For pure sim­plic­i­ty, and no atti­tude, I sub­scribe to Clarica’s Poet­ry Moment (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), which gives me what I want: a clear female voice read­ing a wide range of poet­ry, with no fuss, just a sense of plea­sure in the mean­ing and the sound of the words.

In this reac­tion, I am a reg­u­lar poet­ry pod­cast lis­ten­er: all com­ments I’ve read on my own, and oth­er sites show reac­tion to all this spo­ken poet­ry to be over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive, and some­times deeply emo­tion­al. Peo­ple love to hear the poem come off the page, whether they are a recep­tion­ist in Hol­land, study­ing for their Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture exams at high school in Scot­land, or learn­ing Eng­lish in the Far East. It’s won­der­ful to sense the world being brought togeth­er through the medi­um of the poet­ry pod­cast. Some­times it almost seems that tech­nol­o­gy has enabled the oral tra­di­tion to be reborn.

For more poems and nov­els, please vis­it our Audio­book Pod­cast Col­lec­tion and if you want to guest blog, get in touch.

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The World of Words & Carnal Knowledge

in Books, Podcasts | September 18th, 2007

carnalknowledge.gifGram­mar is in vogue. The sta­tis­tics don’t lie. The Gram­mar Girl (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) remains one of the most pop­u­lar pod­casts on iTunes, and The Gram­mar Grater (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) is hold­ing its own. From gram­mar, it’s just a short step to words, to ety­mol­o­gy. And, today, we want to high­light Pod­ic­tionary (iTunes — Feed — Site) for you. It’s a “word-of-the-day” pod­cast that spends an easy three to five min­utes sur­vey­ing the his­to­ry of com­mon words in the Eng­lish lan­guage. (This makes it use­ful for native and non-native speak­ers alike). Its cre­ator, Charles Hodg­son, has so far tack­led over 600 terms, which means that he’s amassed an exten­sive audio archive that you can access here.

And his work on words does­n’t stop there. Hodg­son recent­ly pub­lished a new book called Car­nal Knowl­edge: A Navel Gaz­er’s Dic­tio­nary of Anato­my, Ety­mol­o­gy, and Triv­ia (St. Mar­t­in’s Press). Far from pedan­tic, the book uses engag­ing prose and fun facts to tease out the mean­ing of words we use to describe our bod­ies. The whole body gets cov­ered here, from the “eye” to the “simi­an line” to the “gul­let,” and it goes straight down to the nether regions, too. For more infor­ma­tion, spend some time with the blog that accom­pa­nies the new book.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ten Pod­casts to Build Your Vocab­u­lary

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How to Make Your Podcasts More Mobile

in Podcasts, Web/Tech | August 6th, 2007

That sounds like a strange propo­si­tion. Pod­casts are inher­ent­ly mobile, so what can make them more mobile? Appar­ent­ly myPod­der can. It’s a free, cross-plat­form soft­ware pack­age put out by Pod­cast Ready that has two notable advan­tages. Once you reg­is­ter and install their free soft­ware, you’ll no longer need to down­load pod­casts first to your com­put­er and then to your mp3 play­er. Instead, you’ll be able to down­load them direct­ly to your MP3 play­er via the inter­net and cut out the mid­dle step. Beyond that, myPod­der lets you update your mp3 play­er from any­where you can get an inter­net con­nec­tion. Now, you’re no longer forced to update your pod­cast col­lec­tion from one loca­tion (as is the case with iTunes). It’s all free, so give it a good look.

If you have any oth­er good tips for work­ing with pod­casts, please send them our way. Drop them in our com­ments below, or send them **@******re.com”>via email.

If you’re gen­er­al­ly won­der­ing how to work with pod­casts in the first place, please see our Pod­cast Primer.

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Radio Lab: A Great Science Podcast

in Podcasts, Science | July 17th, 2007

Radi­o­Lab, a sci­ence radio show cre­at­ed by WNYC in New York, is a lit­tle unusu­al for a pub­lic radio show. It comes out in short sea­sons of about five episodes. Each episode address­es a par­tic­u­lar ques­tion in sci­ence through a wide lens–I found their most recent­ly pod­cast show, on Moral­i­ty, to be par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ing. We’re adding the new show to our col­lec­tion of Sci­ence Pod­casts. Check it out for your­self!

Radi­o­Lab (Site, iTunes, Feed)

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Ten Podcasts to Build Your Vocabulary

in English Language, Podcasts | July 12th, 2007

Recent­ly Mer­ri­am-Web­ster announced that they’re adding “ginor­mous,” “speed dat­ing” and a few oth­er gems to the lat­est edi­tion of their dic­tio­nary. In their hon­or, we present ten pod­casts to help you expand your vocab­u­lary. Enjoy!

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The Top 25 Educational Podcasts on iTunes — June 22

in Podcasts | June 23rd, 2007

We haven’t vis­it­ed the list of iTunes’ top edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts since April. So it’s time for anoth­er look…What we’ve got here is pret­ty much a case of “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Or, put dif­fer­ent­ly, even though two months have passed, it is still for­eign lan­guage les­son pod­casts that are rul­ing the day, par­tic­u­lar­ly pod­casts that will teach you Span­ish, French and Ital­ian. Also, the ever pop­u­lar “Gram­mar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Bet­ter Writ­ing” is still hold­ing strong. The one major new addi­tion is a free audio book of Pride and Prej­u­dice. Audio books have almost nev­er appeared on this list, so the #2 posi­tion of this pod­cast tes­ti­fies to the endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of this great Jane Austen work. Last­ly, it’s worth men­tion­ing that no audio from uni­ver­si­ties has made it into the top 25. There is some­thing just a lit­tle bit wrong with this pic­ture, would­n’t you say?

#1. Cof­fee Break Span­ish iTunes Feed Web Site

#2. Pride and Prej­u­dice iTunes

#3. Gram­mar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Bet­ter Writ­ing iTunes Feed Web Site

#4. The French Pod Class iTunes Feed Web Site

#5. LearnItalianPod.com iTunes Feed Web Site

#6. Ins­ta Span­ish Lessons iTunes Feed Web Site

#7. Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide iTunes Feed

#8. Learn French by Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site

#9. MyDai­lyPhrase Ital­ian iTunes Web Site

#10. Let’s Speak Ital­ian iTunes Feed Web Site

#11. Span­ish Suc­cess iTunes Web Site

#12. Chinesepod.com iTunes Feed Web Site

#13. JapanesePod101.com iTunes Feed Web Site

#14. French for Begin­ners iTunes Feed Web Site

#15. Learn French with Dai­ly Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site

#16. Just Vocab­u­lary iTunes

#17. Final­ly Learn Span­ish — Beyond the Basics iTunes Feed Web Site

#18. Digital Pho­tog­ra­phy Tips from the Top Floor iTunes Feed Web Site

#19. Span­ish Sense iTunes Feed Web Site

#20. Prince­ton Review Vocab­u­lary Minute iTunes Feed Web Site

#21. Learn Ger­man with German-Podcast.de iTunes Feed Web Site

#22. Ma France iTunes Feed Web Site

#23. TEDTalks (Video) iTunes Feed Web Site

#24. Notes in Span­ish (Advanced) iTunes Feed Web Site

#25. Notes in Span­ish (Inter­me­di­ate) iTunes Feed Web Site

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Podcast Tutorial

in Podcasts | March 19th, 2007

We talk about pod­casts a good deal around here. But giv­en that only 12% of inter­net users have ever down­loaded a pod­cast, and only 1% does so dai­ly (see this Pew Research Cen­ter study), we want­ed to pro­vide an overview of pod­casts and how to use them. In a few min­utes, we want to get you up and run­ning and explor­ing our rich col­lec­tions of edu­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al mate­ri­als.

What is a pod­cast?

Here’s the basic answer. Pod­casts are essen­tial­ly radio shows avail­able for down­load over the Inter­net, and you can lis­ten to them on your iPod, oth­er portable mp3 play­ers, and com­put­er. Instead of being broad­cast over the air­waves and even­tu­al­ly lost, as hap­pens with tra­di­tion­al radio shows, pod­casts can be stored and played at the user’s con­ve­nience. Think of it as a TIVO in audio.

How do I down­load and lis­ten to pod­casts? The iTunes Way

Giv­en the preva­lence of Apple’s iPod/iPhone, dis­cussing the Apple way of down­load­ing pod­casts is unavoid­able.

To access pod­casts through iTunes (down­load for free here), you have sev­er­al options:

Option 1:

  • Open iTunes,
  • Click on “iTunes store” on the left side of the screen,
  • Next click on “Pod­casts” with­in the area called “iTunes Store,”
  • Search and find the pod­cast you want,
  • Then either click “Get Episode” to get an indi­vid­ual pod­cast that inter­ests you, or click “Sub­scribe” to auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive each new install­ment with­in the pod­cast series.

Option 2:

  • Find a pod­cast that you’d like to explore. (You may encounter them while surf­ing the web),
  • Locate the pod­cast’s rss feed, which sites usu­al­ly adver­tise on their home­page, and are often accom­pa­nied by this sym­bol,
  • Click on the “Advanced” drop-down menu along the top of the screen,
  • Next select “Sub­scribe to pod­cast,”
  • And then paste the feed link (for exam­ple, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/mind.xml) into the box and click “Ok.”

NOTE: This option works well when you find a pod­cast that’s not already list­ed on iTunes.

Option 3:

  • Some­times when you’re surf­ing the web, you’ll find a pod­cast that you like, and you’ll have the option to sub­scribe direct­ly to the pod­cast on iTunes from the web page. (On Open Cul­ture, we give you this option when­ev­er we see a link that says “iTunes.”)
  • Click on the link and it will help you launch iTunes, and from there you’ll be giv­en the option either to sub­scribe to the ongo­ing pod­cast, or to down­load indi­vid­ual episodes.

Lis­ten­ing to the Pod­casts

Final­ly, when you sync your iPod, your pod­casts will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly down­loaded onto your iPod. And you can lis­ten to them by:

  • Turn­ing on your iPod,
  • Click­ing on “Music” at the main menu.
  • Scrolling the wheel down to “Pod­casts,”
  • And then select­ing the indi­vid­ual pod­casts that you want to play.

Are there alter­na­tives to iTunes?

Yes. And you have a cou­ple of options here.

If you own anoth­er kind of mp3 play­er (e.g. ones by Microsoft, San­Disk, or Cre­ative), it will come with soft­ware that per­forms essen­tial­ly the same func­tions as iTunes. And you’ll want to fol­low the same basic direc­tions that we out­lined in Step 2 above. That is, find the rss feed (which we always try to pro­vide) and use it to sub­scribe to the pod­cast. Then sync and lis­ten.

And then there is an inter­est­ing sec­ond option: Life­hack­er recent­ly rec­om­mend­ed a free soft­ware called “MyPod­der” (down­load here). It is a cross plat­form soft­ware for down­load­ing pod­casts direct­ly to your MP3 play­er, no mat­ter what kind you have.

Can I Make My Own Pod­casts?

Sure, check out our pre­vi­ous fea­ture that directs you to good resources.

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How to Get Started Podcasting on Your Campus

in Podcasts | January 17th, 2007

For every uni­ver­si­ty that has start­ed pod­cast­ing lec­tures or cours­es, dozens have proved slow to take this step. If you’re an edu­ca­tor who thinks that your uni­ver­si­ty should go dig­i­tal at long last, you’ll want to take a look at this arti­cle appear­ing in The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion. How to Pod­cast Cam­pus Lec­tures overviews the basic ques­tions that you’ll need to con­sid­er: What soft­ware and hard­ware will your school need to launch this kind of ini­tia­tive? What’s the best way to get fac­ul­ty involved in the project? How will stu­dents use these pod­casts? What edu­ca­tion­al val­ue will they have? And what copy­right and con­trac­tu­al issues will your school need to con­sid­er? This piece will get you off to a good start. If you want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of mak­ing effec­tive pod­casts, spend some time with our primer: Mak­ing Your Own Pod­casts: Resources to Get You Start­ed.

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