December 7th: The Children's Poetry Archive

Those of you who know me realize that I simply could not get through 24 days of children's book sites without focussing on poetry for at least one (or more) of those days. Today's link is to The Children's Poetry Archive, a site that was established by former British Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. It was his wish to record and make publically available the voices of living poets reading their own work. The site features samples from many noted children's poets including Michael Rosen, Margaret Atwood and Andrew Fusek Peters. There's also recordings of 19th and 20th Century poems but the likes of Robert Browning, William Butler Yeats, and Langston Hughes whose own voices have been lost to history. In all, the work of 48 poets can be heard alongside brief textual biographies of the poets themselves. For those of you whose interests extend beyond children's poetry, you can delve deeper into Motion's broader project at www.poetryarchive.org/.