Here’s a little experiment. I wanted to read this pamphlet that I mentioned in my previous dispatch and decided I would read it with you all, so I cold read it into an audio recording. I had not ever read it before, so if it’s a bit bumpy sounding that is why.
I did not know anything about Thomas Gray, except he was a poet in the 1700’s but since reading this pamphlet, I now know something about him.
There are some of my own charming interjections here and there throughout the reading.
In this pamphlet, it is noted that his letters are formidable. Here’s the digital archive of his letters, so perhaps I will cold read a few of them in a future recording.
Should anybody manage to get to the end of this very long recording, please put a cabbage emoji in the comments. I do not expect anyone to endure it. If you actually know something about Thomas Gray it will likely drive you nuts.
I will continue to find ephemera on my shelf (I have quite a bit) and read it to or with you. If we are to be binge reading, we must be rather like the binge watchers and binge drinkers and not be too discerning and dive into all sorts of reading. It will be hit and miss, but the creative process and the mind appreciates lots of splashing about and we ingest so much pure rubbish, by default, all day long through adverts and algorithmic exploitation that rocking my bookshelves will surely be more purposeful.
I will take some images of the stanzas from his poem quoted in the pamphlet and post them later for posterity. One set are an earlier draft only found in the Eton archives. Also, because the transcription will bollix them up. If the transcription is annoying I can also hide it.
I do have to learn a bit more about the meters in these poems, so I can deliver better readings of them. Iambic pentameter I know quite well but the tetrameter and others less so.
Other books mentioned
Rachel Cohen A Chance Meeting: American Encounters
Marina Roy Queuejumping
Virginia Woolf The Common Reader
McNally Robinson, an Independent bookstore in Winnipeg, who have hosted me for 2 readings, are a good place to order books online since if you spend $50 the shipping is free. Otherwise your local bookshop is great, since supporting local businesses is the way to ensure you actually have bookshops.
The accidental encounters maze went Woolf’s The Common Reader made me dream of the Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson because she mentions him on Thomas Gray. I found the Life of Samuel Johnson on my shelf and read a bit of it which then quoted Thomas Gray. I discovered I had this (now read to you) Thomas Gray pamphlet. Before I read it to you I was reading a section in Queuejumping that mentioned Queen Elizabeth I. Thomas Gray pamphlet mentioned he has a poem about Queen Elizabeth I.
