What Think You I Take my Pen in Hand?


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(4 stars; 2 reviews)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 different recordings of What think you I take my pen in hand? by Walt Whitman. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 29th, 2007. (0 hr 14 min)

Chapters

What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:18 Read by Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010)
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:03 Read by LibriVox Volunteers
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:58 Read by Elizabeth Palmer
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:57 Read by Ezwa
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:52 Read by JudithA
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:53 Read by Joe Brenneman
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:08 Read by Jason Oakley
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:00 Read by Jeanette Ferguson
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:58 Read by Jay Rudman
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:46 Read by Karen Savage
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:01 Read by Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023)
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:02 Read by Lee Ann Howlett
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:01 Read by Olivia Arakawa
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 1:06 Read by Esther
What think you I take my pen in hand? read by 0:56 Read by Travis E. Phillips

Reviews

This was easy to listen to.


(4 stars)

The reason for my giving such a high score is more to do with the author's place in American poetry than my actual like for what he writes. I wish he had better content or at least took to editing (just the smallest amount would be well appreciated), but no: the poet seemed quite intent on glorifying the most mundane things. I can definitely sympathize with the author's special eloquence (always clothed in a self justifying disposition). The imagery is vivid and events are portrayed with something nostalgic (it is clear when we are reminiscing if we tend to paint pictures with a little bit to much detail; I'm sure the most of us do not reflect upon our every muscle's twitch while we baptize our biscuit in our morning coffee each day). Putting that aside, this is what poetry does, but I don't think everything is deserving of this kind of treatment. However, Walt Whitman had high regards for the concept of friendship and I do think that that may rightly be immortalized in such verses as his.