Vinyl Countdown: Introducing the National Poetry Library’s vinyl collection

An anthology of different poets? A spoken word event? A neatly printed collection or pamphlet? What about vinyl records?

Though it may not be the most obvious of mediums, in the National Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre, you can find a set of increasingly full shelves, packed with vinyl recordings of poetry from the 1950s to the present day. From straightforward readings to collaborations with musicians, and more experimental sound productions, the Vinyl Collection helps bring added life into works both familiar and new.

At the time of writing the National Poetry Library’s Vinyl Collection contains 248 records, but as will any collection in the NPL it grows all the time. And that growth isn’t just a result of fresh recordings from new performers, but through the hard work of the NPL’s librarians to unearth early recordings of well-known poets. Each record presents a distinct document of poets past and present, giving a greater insight to how they presented their own words, from the tone of their voices to where they place emphasis.

‘From the 1950s to the 1970s recording spoken word onto vinyl was a pretty common practice for well-established poets,’ explains Assistant Librarian Will René, ‘Labels such as Argo and Caedmon released LPs of well-known poets including T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and John Betjeman’.

These days vinyl is less of a go-to resource for poets, with the emergence of online audio and video platforms such as Soundcloud and YouTube meaning there’s no longer a need to have poetry pressed onto wax in order for fans to hear it in their own home. But despite the technological advances, poetry on vinyl isn’t the dying art some would have predicted. ‘Over the last few years, there has been a resurgence in poetry being released on vinyl,’ says René, ‘with labels like Nymphs & Thugs and the US-based Fonograf specialising in this type of release for new poets’.

So what can you expect to hear in the NPL’s Vinyl Collection? Is it mainly those mid-20th century recordings? ‘There are a few nice surprises waiting for anyone digging through our records,’ says René, ‘I won’t spoil the fun of the search, but among the Collection you can find a post-rock band fronted by Simon Armitage, Lana Del Rey’s spoken word LP, Ivor Cutler’s Peel Sessions, and a sublimely silly two hours of Tim Key’s poetry programme.’

To help get an idea of the breadth of the National Poetry Library’s Vinyl Collection we asked their librarians to pick out a favourite record from the shelves. Here, in no particular order, is their vinyl countdown.

We Come from the Sun

Cerys Matthews, Hidden Orchestra & 10 poets

Produced by Decca Records (2020), chosen by Lorraine Mariner, Assistant Librarian

‘Some poets will tell you that it’s song lyrics that brought them to poetry and so it makes perfect sense that poetry has become such an important component of singer songwriter Cerys Matthews’s BBC 6Music radio show, leading her to create this poetry album with some of the UK’s hottest poets. Each poet recorded an existing poem from one of their collections, with Matthews and Joe Acheson (Hidden Orchestra) composing accompanying music, to present immersive poetry soundscapes. The music comes from a variety of instruments; there’s a piano echoing the rain in Raymond Antrobus’s ‘Happy Birthday Moon’; electronic synth and drums expressing the heat of Belinda Zhawi’s ‘Flame Lily’; and a field recording which makes the start of Liz Berry’s ‘Birmingham Roller’ sound like the Industrial Revolution is kicking off. The mix of each poet’s voice and the music really does create a feeling of being transported inside the poem’.

We Will Keep On

Disarm Hate

Produced by Nymphs & Thugs (2021), chosen by Troy Cabida, Library Assistant

‘The power that can be felt in the poems on We Will Keep On is intimate and exact; looking homophobia – may it be transphobia, misogynoir, intergenerational trauma and more – right in the eye with an unwavering strength. These poems were written in response to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and speak about solidarity, the right to express one’s lived experiences, and the need to actively listen and provide space for others. Showcased on this record are a collection of voices, including Joelle Taylor, Andrew McMillan and Dean Atta, that bring light onto those who have learnt to live with the pain and exclusion that has shaped their relationship with themselves and the world around them, while at the same time carving out ‘the words that don’t hurt’, to find language that maintains love, care and community.’

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass

Lana Del Rey

Produced by Polydor Records; Interscope Records (2020), chosen by Emily Wood, Library Assistant

‘In her first spoken word album, we step into the familiar dreamy world that we have come to expect from Lana Del Rey. Although clearly inspired by The Beat Poets, as well as 2010s Instagram Poetry, this collection is still very much its own brand of Del Rey candy-coloured fantasy and confessional. There’s a love letter to Los Angeles, lines delivered at a whisper with piano and saxophone embellishments from Jack Antonoff, a recital of her Instagram bio ‘My life is my poetry, my lovemaking is my legacy’, and a track about her sailing lessons where she learns to ‘captain’ her own reality. The record is in equal parts extravagant, glamorous and melancholy. Prepare to be transported to the corner of a smoky jazz bar with a single spotlight on our one and only, Lana.’

The Orcadian poet reads his poems and a story

George Mackay Brown

Produced by Claddagh Records (1971), chosen by Rusell Thompson, Library Assistant

‘When it comes to sheer focus, it’s hard to beat George Mackay Brown. Born in Orkney in 1921, he only visited England once and seldom even visited Scotland. Orkney was not just his home, but the overarching theme of his writing, both poetry and prose. Geography aside, his trademark was a knack for paring images down to their elemental basics – salt, corn, iron, stone– a quality underlined by this LP’s grainy sleeve shot, in which the poet seemingly stands in for a missing monolith in one of Orkney’s stone circles. Brown’s reading voice belies this weatherbeaten stereotyping, however, emphasising the lilt of such lines as ‘I have known a gray-eyed sober boy / Sail to the lobsters in a storm, and drown.’ Elemental ideas do not date quickly, meaning that this 1971 recording still retains its quayside freshness, and that two and a half decades after his death, Brown is still very much (as per the title) the Orcadian poet.’

audiopoems

Henri Chopin

Produced by Tangent Records, (1971), chosen by Elspeth Walker, Library Assistant

‘Henri Chopin, the legendary French sound poet whose centenary is this year, was known for advocating the removal of words and the confinements of organised language, and for communicating only through non-verbal sounds. This slightly abstract record lies somewhere between sound poetry and sound art, and it immerses the listener through a writer’s lesser used sense: sound. The sounds seem to transport the listener to another place; the sea comes to mind, or the tension of something around the corner, like the sharp tones in an 1980s sci-fi film. It is a great example of art that pushes boundaries of how we communicate, and of how much emotion and understanding can be generated even through a collection of technologically manipulated bodily sounds. Chopin is one of many sound poets held in the NPL Vinyl Collection, which also includes, among others, Bob Cobbing, Francois Dufrene and Katalin Ladik.’

Father Fugue

Nour Moubarak

Produced by Recital (2019), chosen by Will René, Assistant Librarian

‘This unique album is an inspiring example of how the medium of recorded sound can create its own poetic vocabulary. The side-long title piece of this LP plays on two channels – the left channel is composed of multilingual conversations between Nour Moubarak and her father, who has a 30 second memory, while the right channel is composed of improvised song. The result is a disorienting, fragmentary experience, dissolving conventional notions of time, language and memory. And the beautifully printed transcription included with the record reads like a concrete poem.’

Solitude

King Midas Sound

Produced by Cosmo Rhythmatic (2019), chosen by Chris McCabe, Librarian

‘What is the sound of a relationship breaking up? In the world of King Midas Sound, one of T.S.Eliot prize-winning poet Roger Robinson’s many musical collaborations, it is submersive, echoey, repetitive, ethereal, dull and somewhat mysterious. If this sounds dark, and it is, there is transcendence here too, along with a myriad of knock-out lines that stick in the mind long after listening. ‘I stuck to you because it was better than sticking to nothing’. In one of the tracks the speaker takes a train, seemingly for no reason, to camp on the edge of Loch Lomond. The strange and unmissable journey of this LP joins a dub poetry lineage that stretches from Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze through to The Spaceape and Nazamba, all of whom we hold in our collection.’