“Two girls recording literature”: Re-listening to Caedmon recordings

The SpokenWeb Podcast

In February 1952, Barbara (Cohen) Holdridge and Marianne (Roney) Mantell, two recent graduates of Hunter college, founded Caedmon records, the first label devoted to recording spoken word. In this episode, producers Michelle Levy and Maya Schwartz revisit the early history of Caedmon records. They pay tribute to Holdridge and Mantell by re-listening to two poems from the Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading, first released in 1957 from and now held in SFU’s Special Collections. Michelle discusses Robert Frost’s recording of “After Apple Picking” with Professor Susan Wolfson, of Princeton University, and Maya chats with Professor Stephen Collis, of SFU’s English department, about William Carlos Williams’ reading of “The Seafarer.” As they listen to the poems together, they debate what it means to listen to as opposed to read these poems, with the recordings providing what Holdridge described as a “third-dimensional depth, that a two-dimensional book lacked.”

Featured graphic credit: photographs by Phillip A. Harrington, courtesy of Evan Harrington

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Works Cited

Onion, Charlie. “Caedmon Spoken-Word Recordings go Digital.” Wag: a magazine for decadent readers, June 2002, http://www.thewag.net/books/caedmon.htm. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

“Caedmon: Recreating the Moment of Inspiration.” NPR, December 2002, https://www.npr.org/2002/12/05/866406/caedmon-recreating-the-moment-of-inspiration. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

“Caedmon.” HarperCollins.com. https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/caedmon. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

“Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading: Gertrude Stein, Archibald MacLeish, E.E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, William Empson, Stephen Spender, Conrad Aiken, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Richard Eberhart, Ezra Pound, and Richard Wilbur reading #604.” n.d. Sound recording. MSC199 #604.. Simon Fraser University Sound Recordings Collection, Simon Fraser University Archives, Burnaby, B.C. November, 2023.

“Mattiwilda Dobbs – Bizet: FAIR MAIDEN OF PERTH, HIgh F, 1956 ” Youtube, uploaded by Songbirdwatcher, June 14, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxZZtxM8ykam-Rml9Q7ij4J2OIWLrx3lUB.

Etude 8 Dimitri by Blue Dot Sessions

Frost, Robert. “After Apple-Picking.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44259/after-apple-picking. Accessed 30 January 2024.

“File:Mattiwilda Dobbs 1957.JPEG.” Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mattiwilda_Dobbs_1957.JPG. Accessed 14 February 2024.

Harrington, Philip A. “[Marianne Roney and Barbara Cohen of Caedmon Publishing Company pushing a wheelbarrow full of boxes of their recordings of modern literature in New York City]”. December, 1953.

“How two young women captured the voices of literary greats and became audiobook pioneers.” Writers and Company. CBC, July, 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/writersandcompany/how-two-young-women-captured-the-voices-of-literary-greats-1.6912133. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

“January 20, 1961 - Poet Robert Frost Reads Poem at John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration.” Youtube, uploaded by Helmer Reenberg, January 15, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AILGO3gVlTU.

“Oread.” H.D. Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48186/oread. Accessed 30, January 2024.

“The Caedmon Treasury of Modern Poets Reading 2LP Caedmon TC 2006 Vinyl Record.” Boundless Goodz, https://www.ebay.com/itm/374791681072?itmmeta=01HPJMRA2M8G311HNSS83Q5Z2G&hash=item5743533430:g:ESgAAOSwdLVkomcL&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8OcrOX8GrjGcCKd73gETrLCg9HgtTomQcdBFQsfuKIbZJCerwOPQAP8v95zLuLDTLfzKCEpHr6ciRZXXlKA1iJKJQIZBNBP68Ru6LBfSoa%2FfPEP7%2Fa%2BIRslUZ5i2RDM4SZwOC2l6XlwBx5qb9ihywjJIDK71WKdGDo8mhOnddK0NPBgnn26N5JH6N9DSuSkFkjy7BoQeE7hzXcLV76vAmN2Q6IKkpjLN5l%2B4M36eDSYpXhiFfxsmyok%2Bn1aYfEds46k8%2FfPX0doDJv7qXPKwVi5g99nrSnyZ95AdrCWpR3Tj3%2FkxYp0wlrb2dQ%2F%2FuEaktQ%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMwHh1LRj. Accessed 14 February 2024.

Williams, Williams Carlos. “The Seafarer.” University of Washington, http://www.visions05.washington.edu/poetry/details.jsp?id=18. Accessed 30 January, 2024.