If We Burn (recording)

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I’m experimenting a bit with recording, and thought I’d post a result. The poem, “If We Burn,” first appeared on the blog in December 2014, was included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform, and was also featured on Imperfect Life, an online Australian magazine, in July 2016.

59 thoughts on “If We Burn (recording)”

  2. Really liked it, Bob! Your voice has a lovely tone to it – good pacing and inflection. It didn’t matter I couldn’t see the words – they were breathed in.

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  6. I cheated, went over and read the words first. Both versions compelling, the combination wonderful. I welcomed hearing your intended pauses. And I liked the absence of interference from background, your voice alone filling on its own.

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  8. Well done, Bob. As much as I enjoy reading poetry,you’ve sown that the author’s voice truly brings it to life.

    However… Back in the day – more than ten years ago, when I first started posting poetry videos on YouTube – someone contacted me and asked if I would do a voice-over for a poem by an author he was communicating with, Judith Furedi. She in turn contacted me and asked if would record all of the poems (45) in her book on the life of John Lennon – Dear John, Letters from a Fan in New York City. She liked it enough to include a CD of the audio with each book. In fact, a video she made using one of those is still on her YouTube account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg0U015X584 She even has the video from my original demo (Since then, I’ve learned some tricks about cleaning up hiss & background noise, including a better mic.)

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    • Great reading, Ken. Thanks for sharing it. My first recordings were pretty “hissy,” but I fixed that problem with a better mic. Amazing what decent equipment will do for you. Of course I knew that, but tried to get by with crap. 🙂

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      • Believe it or not, one of my cameras records pretty decent audio. I just convert the file to an mp3, then edit it in Audacity by deleting background noise, which is done by using a dead air space in the recording to use as the sample for noise to be removed.

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    • Thanks, Joan. I’m sure I’ll be doing more, especially now that I’ve downloaded Audacity and have to experiment with layered sounds. At some point people may start saying “no more.” Ha!

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  14. This is wonderful to hear, particularly as many of my efforts are done with a specific voice, rhythm and pace in mind as spoken pieces. I currently lack the confidence (and quite probably the ability) to hold the interest of an audience but it’s great to listen to a writer’s own interpretation, especially when it is done as well as this.

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  19. I really enjoyed this, Bob: not only the quality of your voice, but your interpretation of your own work, with the pauses and emphasis where you intended. I did, miss, though, the written version, as I still want to be able to look at the words, re-read and consider them. Perhaps you could include them in an initially hidden or embedded manner that would allow the listener to read the poem afterward?

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