VRZHU bullets of pure love

Vrzhu Birthday Greetings

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and the world laughs at you."

"I don't disagree with people.  I merely point out how wrong they are."

***

Hwaet. It’s been a while since we’ve done birthday greetings here at Vrzhu, but today and tomorrow are jam-packed:

May 8, 1930 Gary Snyder
May 8, 1592 Francis Quarles
May 9, 1938 Charles Simic
May 9, 1895 Lucian Blaga
May 9, 1265 Dante Alighieri

So here’s our first installment: Gary Snyder

As For Poets
Gary Snyder

As for poets
The Earth Poets
Who write small poems,
Need help from no man.

The Air Poets
Play out the swiftest gales
And sometimes loll in the eddies.
Poem after poem,
Curling back on the same thrust.

At fifty below
Fuel oil won't flow
And propane stays in the tank.
Fire Poets
Burn absolute zero
Fossil love pumped back up.

The first
Water Poet
Stayed down six years.
He was covered with seaweed.
The life in his poem
Left millions of tiny
Different tracks
Criss-crossing through the mud.

With the Sun and Moon
In his belly,
The Space Poet
Sleeps.
No end to the sky--
But his poems,
Like wild geese,
Fly off the edge.

A Mind Poet
Stays in the house.
The house is empty
And it has no walls.
The poem
Is seen from all sides,
Everywhere,
At once.

Why I Take Good Care Of My Macintosh Computer
Gary Snyder

Because it broods under it's hood like a perched falcon
Because it jumps like a skittish horse
    and sometimes throws me
Because it is pokey when cold
Because plastic is a sad, strong material
    that is charming to rodents
Because it is flighty
Because my mind flies into it through my fingers
Because it leaps forward and backward
    is an endless sniffer and searcher,
Because its keys click like hail on a rock
& it winks when it goes out,
& puts word-heaps in hoards for me, dozens of pockets of
    gold under boulders in streambeds, identical seedpods
    strong on a vine, or it stores bins of bolts;
And I lose them and find them,
Because whole worlds of writing can be boldly layed out
and then highlighted, & vanished in a flash at
    "delete" so it teaches
    of impermanence and pain;
& because my computer and me are both brief
    in this world, both foolish, and we have earthly fates,
Because I have let it move in with me
    right inside the tent
And it goes with me out every morning
We fill up our baskets, get back home,
Feel rich, relax, I throw it a scrap and it hums.

Riprap
Gary Snyder

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
              placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
              in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
              riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
              straying planets,
These poems, people,
              lost ponies with
Dragging saddles --
              and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
              four-dimensional
Game of Go.
              ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
              a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
              with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
              all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

I saw Gary Snyder at the Folger Library in 1995, and he was impressive.  I used two of my five words of Japanese, and he replied with about 20, which, or course, I didn’t know. We also talked about how we  liked the little moleskine notebooks. I wish we'd talked about fuseki, which is the pure poetry part of Go, but I was too shy.  In Go, the board is set so that the grain of the wood runs from one player to the other, rather than like a fence, dividing them.  This is to show that the two players are united in a common effort: the making of the game. The grain of a poem, too, should join the writer and the reader, from one to the other, in a united effort, the making of the poem.

Anyway, he was completely charming. During his reading he recounted talking to some high-ranking economist who said that oil will never reach $100 a barrel. To which Gary Snyder replied, I don’t know. It just hit $50 a barrel, didn’t it?

Here’s a news item:

May 8, 2008. NEW YORK - Gasoline and crude oil jumped to new records Thursday, with gas rising 3 cents to an average national price of nearly $3.65 a gallon and oil crossing $124 a barrel for the first time.

Happy birthday, Gary.

NaPoWriMo - SF - Poetry Readings

I'm baaaaaaaaack.  From a long weekend in San Francisco (travel notes below). But first, back with renewed vigor and less despair to NaPoWriMo.  I'm about a week behind so here are two poems of the day for today. If I don't catch up by the 30th, I will write all the missing poems on that day.  I may rev up the contest again, but not right at the mo.  Also  a link to a post at the bottom that you must read.

[gone]

*`*`*    *

Other NaPoWriMo Links:

Will Brown Online
A Page of Woe Absolved
Perfect Lines
The Booth of Our Conniving
Bloof Blog
jump(s) the track(s)
Slim Windows
Book of Kells
Glamor Levels Hi
Homeschooled by a Cackling Jackal
fringe matters.
Laurel Snyder
Ivy is Here
water veiled
Womb Poetry
Bernadette Geyer
Readwritepoem
Carter's Little Pill
Watermark
Bee's Hovel
The Polka Dot Witch
Chicks Dig Poetry
The Package Insert of Sorrows
Carrie Etter
Dreamspot Dot Dot
Big Window
a wrung sponge
Blogging Poet
Heaven
Shann Palmer says
Stick Poet Super Hero
Versatile
Freak Machine Press
Mark Lamoureux
No Starting Point
Dragonfly on a Dog Chain
This is Not Made Up
Hyacinth Girls
For the Time Being
32 Poems
words intended as poetry
Forest River Journal
Lectitans
Carmen Gimenez Smith
Eric's Writing Corner
Possum
Beloved Dreamer
djkreutzer
August Avenue
freefalling me
GottaBook
A Window Within Myself
wjsullivan.net

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A confession.  Until this weekend, I had never set foot in San Francisco, or the State of California. We stayed in the Mission district (24th Street and Florida Street). And it was everything I like in a city: diverse, different, walkable, lots of local food, minimal chainstores of any sort, and bookstores. And spent most of the weekend in the Mission District, which was fine by me. Highlights of the weekend, in no particular order:

Phil's Coffee

Borderland Books

Kara's Cupcakes

Amoeba Music

some stunning dance pieces at ODC

The church (in the Mission district) and cemetery where Scottie first meets Madeleine Elster. (in Vertigo)

A Steller's jay in the backyard (I'm pretty sure).

Some San Francisco conversations:

Entering Golden Gate Park

Dude: You looking for some weed?

Me: um, no.

(pause) Dude: You know that's a pretty typical question around here, right?

Me: um, yup. thanks.

Leaving Golden Gate Park

Different Dude: You look like George Lucas.

Me. Thanks. But I'm not. Probably.

At a club (as recounted)

Dude in pink shirt: Sometimes I curse like a maestro.

Much smarter young woman: I'm not sure I know what you mean by that.

Dude i.p.s.(dismissively): It's an analogy.

M.S.Y.W.: No, it's a simile. Maybe you need to take an SAT prep course. Or something.

Most interesting Streetfood:

A hot dog, wrapped in bacon, fried, then put on a bun, topped with a pile of lightly sauteed onion and green peppers, and then further topped with 3/4 of a cup of pickled jalapenos!

*    *    *    *   

Check out this post over at Mark Wallace's blog. It's on poetry readings, and it's wonderful.  We here often make fun of poetry readings, as well as poetry, poets, and poems (we kid because we care) but I couldn't agree more with what Mr. Wallace says here.

Tuesday Wrap - Split this Rock, etc.

I missed the Split This Rock Poetry Festival these past four days due to international intrigue.  Or something.

But STR got a lot of well-deserved coverage in lots of places. You can get the skinny here if you also missed it.  Word had been spreading for quite a while.

I'll be checking out the Split This Rock blog, which has some videos of readings and stuff up, and promises to put up more as they get them, which means I won't feel entirely left out, at least after the fact.

Vrzhu publisher Dan Vera showed up here in poetry and elsewhere in person. I'm hoping he'll report here on the festival as an observer, attendee, and participant.

Karren Alenier, aka The Dresser, has some reporting out on her blog here and here and here and here.

Having missed it I can still enjoy the Split This Rock issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly -- including this brilliant poem by Naomi Ayala, one my big poetry crushes -- and this issue of the Beloit Poetry Journal.

I look forward to hearing about Vrzhu author Kim Roberts' Harlem Renaissance in DC tour.

From the blog posts about the event -- of which I expect to see more and more of as folks report back on the festival -- it was by all accounts an exhilarating success.

I remain in awe of festival organizers and masterminds Melissa Tuckey and the inimitable Sarah Browning as well as the rest of the Split This Rock posse.

UPDATE (Dan here): I was able to get some nice video of Mark Doty and Galway Kinnell's reading.  I've posted it on YouTube and below.

The festival was a great success and the hope is to hold these every two years.

I got some video of Mark Doty's gorgeous reading on Saturday night.  Doty read a number of poems including Walt Whitman's "Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic A Voice."  But I was really stunned by his reading of an earlier poem of his titled "Charlie Howard's Descent" written after the killing of a gay boy in Maine.  The video is below.  Below are links from other videos I posted to Youtube.

Mark Doty reading Whitman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7HgO3d3AmA

Galway Kinnell stunning reading Paul Celan's "Fugue of Death"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDpaNLaBt0I

Daybook Entry - Wittgenstein

A poet’s words can pierce us. And that is of course causally connected with the use they have in our life. And it is also connected with the way in which, conformably to this use, we let our thoughts run up and down in the familiar surroundings of the words.

-Wittgenstein, Zettel 155

Is there a difference in meaning that can be explained and another that does not come out in an explanation?

-Wittgenstein, Zettel 156

Do not forget that a poem, even though it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information.

-Wittgenstein, Zettel 160

There is a strong musical element in verbal language (a sigh, the intonation of voice in question, in an announcement, in longing, all the innumerable gestures made with the voice).

-Wittgenstein, Zettel 161

But they got their significance only from the surroundings: from the reading of this poem, from my familiarity with its language, with its meter and with innumerable associations.

-Wittgenstein, Zettel 170

Tuesday Chronicle

Oy, lots and lots of ground to cover this week. I must make good on my promise to finish off "Poetry and Amino Acids", some news about Vrzhu authors, and with luck a little dissection of some phrases. You'd think, with Monday being a holiday celebrating Rutherford B. Hayes, Millard Fillmore, and, greatest of all, James K. Polk, that I'd be completely assured of being able to make a fulsome and satisfying post. However, Monday included:

--finishing Endless Things, the last part in John Crowley's Aegypt series, though it is really one big book

--instructing nephew in Go: some tesuji ("there is death in the hane"), some fuseki, a handicap game

--nap

--dinner to include broccoli raab with sundried tomatoes and pignoli.

So we'll see what we can git to, though some of what needs to show up here is, by blog standards, old, old news -- I'm just not fast enough on my feet for the response time standards of the blogosphere. We'll see how I feel, and if any of this falls into the tedia of something like yesterday's TV dinner (you ate the apple crisp first, didn't you), then feel free to skip ahead or out altogether.

BUT not before this Important News:

Vrzhu author, Walt Whitman expert, and all around poet around town, Kim Roberts, guest blogs here on the submitting of work to journals, and suggests some things to make it less of a slog.

The second part of an interview with Vrzhu author, raconteur and thoughtful respondent, Hiram Larew here (first part here) -- this is really a wonderful interview -- and a profile of Mr. Larew here (which was pointed out in the best selling Silliman's Blog Here).

And Now:

The Future Of Poetry/Poetry Of The Future: markets, contests, DIY, constraints, and Amino Acids Part Two

Synthetic Genome: Signed, Sealed, Decoded

You were expecting poetry, perhaps? The secret messages hidden in J. Craig Venter’s synthetic bacterial genome have now been revealed. They are Dr. Venter’s name, and that of his research institute and co-workers.

How does poetry get out into the world? We discussed this briefly here. For manuscripts, there are contests, or some sort of Do It Yourself publishing.

Much the same problem inhabits publishing or otherwise getting poems out there separately.  You can submit to journals, or find some venue of your own. Richard Brautigan, I believe, used to sell his on the street corner in San Francisco.  There are increasing numbers of poets who put their poems up on their blogs or other internet space.

And is goes without saying that regard for these methods toggles back and forth from legitimate to substandard/vanity, from totalitarian art vice grips to fawning & begging.

Poets are always interested in two things: ways of writing poetry (broadly, constraints) and places for their poetry to be read. For publication in a literary journal, there is the external constraint of the preferences of the editors/journal on the kind of poem accepted, and these can be either explicit or inchoate.

The internet has made a significant expansion of poetry's availability and the ecosystem of poems possible, not just self-publishing but also online journals, online submissions, and even search engines as generators of poems.

But where will the next poetry market be?

The answer is . . . inside!

but, Vrzhu, you ask, where is this inside whereof you speak?

The article up above is the clue. The Venter Institute has engineered the complete DNA of a bacterium.  Proof of this is in certain "watermarks" embedded in the bacterium's DNA, which use the call letters for amino acids to spell out words.

And here we find both our market and our constraint.  When genome technology is sufficiently commonplace, poets will be able to publish their poems as part of the DNA of bacteria! Poetry bookstores could become poetry tubestores where you could go and buy a petri dish of W. S. Merwin, or a prepared slide of John Ashbery. The old guard will complain about the innovative experimentalists flooding the market with non-narrative, anti-lyric spirochetes. Meanwhile, in winter months we'll catch a bad case of the "flarfs."

Here's the constraint. Dr. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, the originator of bioinformatics, invented the one letter code for the amino acids that encode DNA. The  letters of the alphabet missing from the amino acid code provide the lipogrammic constraint for using this method of publishing. Here's a list of the amino acids and the letters with no amino acidic referent:

A - Alanine
B - Asparagine
C - Cysteine
D - Aspartic Acid
E - Glutamic Acid
F - Phenylalanine
G - Glycine
H - Histidine
I - Isoleucine
J - -
K - Lysine
L - Leucine
M - Methionine
N - Asparagine
O - -
P - Proline
Q - Glutamine
R - Arginine
S - Serine
T - Threonine
U - -
V - Valine
W - Tryptophan
X - -
Y –Tyrosine
Z - Glutamine

Everyone, exciting opportunities await you in the dynamic new field of Synthetic Biopoetics!

So Late to the Party That There's Only Ritz Crackers and Tonic Water Left -or- On the So-Called Absolute Materiality of the Signifier.

There's been a lively scrum all over the poetical blogosphere the last couple of weeks about what is and what is not meant by the term "post-avant."  This post started the conflagration, which was taken up here, here, here and here. Among other places. Chris Tonelli sums it up nicely and even-handedly at the Pshares blog (does that "ps" in Pshares stand for some sort of psychic ability?! If so, Chris puts the "chic" in "psychic").

At the same time, there was a response here and here to a Poetry Foundation questionnaire.

For the most part, I like the answers given by the esteemed Ron Silliman, though I doubt that the problem with teaching reading is an over-emphasis on the instrumentality of language.  But certainly poetry-phobia is inculcated in most schools.

But this phrase disturbed me:

". . . the absolute materiality of the signifier, the physicality of sound and of the graphic letter, is the one secret shared by all poets to which nonreaders of poetry seem literally clueless."

I know I'm reading too much into this, because, as we all know, poets are and must be aware of the materiality of words -- their sound and look -- as integral to the art of poetry, though of course there are varying degrees of this. But there is no "absolute" materiality of the signifier.  There's always a balancing act between foregrounding the word's thinghood or the word's meaning-containment.

To be continued . . .

Music + Poetry = ?

So what about music and poetry?  Two great tastes that go great together? Or the dehydration of sugar by adding sulphuric acid?

New York TImes article here (log in required, dude) about former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and current PLOTUS Charles Simic reading at an event called "Music And Poetry." Only one poem read simultaneously with music being played, though.

All well and good.  You could conclude that while serious poets can have a love of music, like, frinstance, jazz as in R.P. and C.S. above, and they even don't mind alternating music and poems, the two (music and poems) are not to go together. Does one upstage the other?

In the moviewelt, Robert Bresson rarely used music in his movies, based on his opinions about film and his theories -- music was a betrayal or distraction or cheating and diluted the meaning of the image. In the poetry world, Bill Knott diatribes against music itself as a fascist and militaristic art.

And of course most famously Beat poets and before them Kenneth Rexroth read their poems as music was being played.

So, next, here in DC, this upcoming event from the Musica Viva, recreating the Weary Blues Project that put poems by  Langston Hughes with the music of Charles Mingus. I'd say this is a not-to-be-missed event. No qualms here about mixing together the two muses.

Also, Coleman Barks often reads his translations, or versions, of Rumi with music, and argues that this is how they were originally presented.  There's a nice moment in Fooling With Words (there's an ambiguous title for ya -- Fooling who with words?) where Barks reads this poem with the Paul Winter Consort playing:

Jars of Springwater

Jars of springwater are not enough
anymore. Take us down to the river!

The face of peace, the sun itself.
No more the slippery cloudlike moon.

Give us one clear morning after another
and the one whose work remains unfinished,

who is our work as we diminish, idle,
though occupied, empty, and open.

by Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

...which Barks reads twice. Quite lovely, but not something I think you could get away with sans music, though I have a vague memory of some poet reading his poems twice because he was sure -- and said -- that the listeners hadn't been paying enough attention the first time and weren't capable of getting it until the second go round. Who was that?

BUT NOT THIS:

Split This Rock in March!

NEW! Call for Poetry Films -  January 30 Deadline: Seeking artistic, experimental, and challenging interpretations of poetry that explore critical social issues. Films up to 15 minutes. Entry fee: $15. Selected films and videos will be screened during the festival's film program. For full guidelines and required entry form: http://splitthisrock.org/film.html

Panel Proposals - Deadline Extended to January 1: Split this Rock invites proposals for panel discussions and workshops on a range of topics at the intersection of poetry and social change. Possibilities are endless. Challenge us. Let's talk about craft, let's talk about mentoring young poets, let's talk about working in prisons, connecting with the activist community, sustaining ourselves in dark times, the role of poetry in wartime. Deadline extended to January 1, 2008. Download the form here: http://splitthisrock.org/documents/Call-for-Proposals.doc

Poetry Contest - January 15 Deadline: The contest benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival. $1,000 awarded for poems of provocation & witness; Kyle G. Dargan will judge. $500 for 1st, $300 for 2^nd, and $200 for 3rd place. 1st place winner will read the winning poem at the festival. The poem will also be published on the festival website at www.SplitThisRock.org. All winners receive free festival admission. $20 entry fee benefits the festival. Postmark Deadline: January 15, 2008. Guidelines for entry: http://splitthisrock.org/contests.html.

Support Split This Rock, the historic gathering of activist poets: The CrossCurrents Foundation made a challenge grant of $10,000 to Split This Rock last month. They'll match every dollar you give. We're 25% of the way to meeting the match � double your donation by giving today! Every dollar you give is tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsor, the Institute for Policy Studies. Just click here: https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/IPS/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1120 and be sure to designate "Split This Rock" as the project you'd like to support. Or send a check payable to "IPS/Split This Rock" to: IPS, 1112 16^th Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC  20036.

Many thanks! Your contribution will make a tremendous difference.

News and Events, and Fun

A coupla annoucements and some games down at the bottom of the page.

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Here’s the next series of poetry readings at the Library of Congress:

• February 7 – Li-Young Lee and David Kirby, 6:45 Montpelier Room (interesting match-up)
• March 6 – The Witter Bynner fellowship awards with readings by the newly selected Witter Bynner fellows.
• March 27 – Rodney Jones and Ellen Bryant Voigt, 6:45 Montpelier Room
• April 24 – Mark Strand and Charles Wright, 6:45 Montpelier Room
• May 8 – Charles Simic reading and lecture

And in the Poetry at noon series (the only other themed reading series in DC), all at 1:00 PM in the Pickford Theater:

• February 12 – Love Poems
• March 11 – Nicknames
• March 18 – Fathers and Daughters
• April 22 – Shakespeare’s Birthday

                                                        *    *    *    *   *

Ah, here's a little game.  Go to the National Gallery of Art's (Washington, D.C.) Past Exhibitions page. Now find the year were born (this only works for those of us born from 1941 on, sorry), and click on that year.  You can now find what exhibits were on display on your original birth day (as in quoits, close counts). For me the scintillating . . . 

Collection of Contemporary German Prints - Overview: The 64 modern German prints in this exhibition were a gift to the American people from the people of the Federal Republic of Germany. The money for this purchase was raised by thousands of Germans, as an expression of gratitude for the help that many had received from the United States after World War II . . .

was on display.

You could go a number of ways with this:

• El Predicto - read said exhibit for clues to your character and future (for me clearly I am a generous and grateful soul, the number 64 will play a large role in my life, I will sleep with thousands of Germans . . .)
• Scholarly - Research the exhibit, background, et cet.
• Sorted by autobiography - look up other significant events - marriage, graduation, divorce, first child, first carnal knowledge, and so on – to assemble an art-centric bio.

                                                        *    *    *    *   *
Who's that? (blog version)

"With his clear, relaxed diction and sublime phrasing, he also codified the sound and rhythm of casually spoken American English. The seamlessness, ingenuity, and rightness of that phrasing is readily apparent but can never be anticipated. You still can't foretell his stresses and caesuras in a piece you've experienced a hundred times."

Identify the subject of this quote:

a. Frank Sinatra
b. John Ashbery
c. Robert Frost
d. Elvis Presley

From Our Research Bureau

Finally, feel safe thanks to Vrzhu Reliable Poetry Protection!

NEWS ITEM

Poetry is naturally acidic, because carbon dioxide emitted by the poet combines with water molecules to form carbonic acid. Acidic poesis occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere react during a poetry reading to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and nitric acid (HNO), which falls on the audience as invisible dust. Most poetry readings are known to have a pH of 5.0 or lower.

In past decades, to reduce poetry pollution in areas near universities, English departments built poetic sneeze guards and venting ducts to disperse the poetic particulate high up into the air, away from listeners. However, new EPA regulations have now made this method infeasible.

During the 1980s, the American Poetry Society conducted a major ten-year scientific study of acidic poetry and poetry precipitates. This study, the National Acidic Poetry Assessment Program or NAPAP, found that the effects of acidic poetry were greater than feared. The study found that acidic poetry had affected about 10 percent of Eastern poetry readers and audiences and that it had contributed to the decline in reading poetry by reducing tolerance to anastrophe, rhyme and synecdoche. The study also found that acidic poesis contributed to corrosion in prose writing in affected areas and that poetic particles had contributed to reduced readability and intelligibility in the Northeast and parts of the West. The panel found that the readers and listeners most severely affected were those who lacked a natural buffering capacity.

The particulate matter associated with acid poesis has been shown to have adverse health effects, especially among those who are susceptible to mental disorders, or are highly suggestible. There is also some concern that acidic poesis could contribute to leaching of common sense and humility from the literate populace.

HOW YOU CAN BE PROTECTED

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Librivox Poetry

  One thing most of us agree on: sound is an important part of a poem for most  poetry. As with everything else in poetry (or so it seems) this is a spectrum, which runs from poems where sound isn't important at all (concrete poetry) to poems where sound is the whole point (sound poems).But I think most poems fall somewhere between these two.

Sound is also the most problematic element in translation--one that is almost always lost as a poem moves from one language to another.  There have been translations that attempt to keep the sounds of the original poem. These use  various homophonic procedures. The most notable example is probably Zukofsky’s Catullus, which is both brilliant and weird. You could still argue, though, that even this extreme attempt is only an approximation at best.

So with a few exceptions, most translations abandon the sound—and music—of the original. 

As a corollary, lots of poets when writing poems say them out loud during  some part of their composing.  There's the story about Cavafy's office mates hearing him in his office talk out loud to himself as he wrote.

Which brings me to Librivox.org.  Librivox, though, is an online project much like Bartleby, or Project Gutenberg. LibriVox uses volunteers to record chapters of books in the public domain, and then releases the audio files back onto the net for free. Their goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. They operate on no money, encourage you to copy the files and share them with friends, and they’ve refused all buy out offers. I’m in awe of their idealism and smarts.

There are, of course, a plethora of good sites on the internet (such as Ubuweb and the Electronic Poetry Center at Buffalo) where you can click and hear poems.  Also there are CD’s of poetry  such as Ian McKellen reading Robert Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey.

On a recent browse I found that Librivox has produced 3 sets of poetry in other languages.  The languages run from Afrikaans to Esperanto (nothing in Zulu yet). I haven’t listened to all or even most of the poems yet, but what I have heard is of very good quality.  Librivox also has recorded poetry in English too, but the Multilingual Poetry Collections are a treat.

Here’s complete list:

Multilingual Poetry Collection 001

Afrikaans - Oktobermaand by C. Louis Leipoldt
Brazilian Portuguese - Cancao do Exilio by Goncalves Dias - :
Brazilian Portuguese - Coracao Perdido by Machado de Assis
Brazilian Portuguese - Flor da Mocidade by Machado de Assis
Chinese - Qing Zhou Duan Zhao by Ouyang Xiu
Esperanto - Al kavaliroj de la paco by Julio Baghy
French - Le Lac by Alphonse de Lamartine
German - Der Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke
German - Er ist’s by Eduard Moerike
German - Der Erlkoenig by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
German - Der Zauberlehrling by Johann Wolfgang Goethe - :
Hebrew - Axarey Moti by Hayyim Nachman Bialik
Hebrew - Rak Al Atzmi by Rachel Blubstein
Japanese - Kouen no isu by Sakutaro Hagiwara
Latin - Eclogue IV by Vergil
Old Norse - Voluspa by Anonymous
Portuguese - Escreve-me by Florbela Espanca
Portuguese - Se tu viesses ver-me by Florbela Espanca
Spanish - En Paz by Amado Nervo
Tagalog - Araw ng Kamusmusan by Ursula O. Maderal

Multilingual Poetry Collection 002

Brazilian Portuguese - Icaro by Machado de Assis
Chinese - Chu Chun Xiao Yu by Han Yu
Chinese - Yuan Ri by Wang Anshi
Czech - Svatebni Kosile by Karel Jaromir Erben
Dutch - De Pruimenboom by Van Alphen
Dutch - Eliza’s vlucht by Ter Haar
French - Alchimie du verbe by Arthur Rimbaud
French - La Geante by Charles Baudelaire
French - Le ciel est by Paul Verlaine
French - Le Revenant by Charles Baudelaire
French - L’Oreiller d’une petite fille by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore
French - Lorsque l’enfant parait… by Victor Hugo
German - Hero und Leander by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
Irish - Amhran na bhFiann by Peader Kearney/Bulmer Hobson
Russian - How do I love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Russian - Teni sizye smesilis’ by Fyodor Tutchev
Scots - Comin Thro’ the Rye by Robert Burns
Spanish - Los Naranjos by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano
Spanish - Soneto Watteau by Juan Jose Tablada
Welsh - yr eos yn y llwyn bedw by Dafydd ap Gwilym

Multilingual Poetry Collection 003

Bengali - Banshi by Rabindranath Tagore
Chinese - Qing Ming by Du Mu
Chinese - Shui Diao Ge Tou by Su Shi
Chinese - Song Yuan Er Shi An Xi by Wang Wei
Dutch - Holland by C.S. Adama van Scheltema
Dutch - Lieve kleine jongens by Hieronymus van Alphen
Esperanto - Lobster Quadrille by Lewis Carroll
French - A la Belgique by Emile Verhaeren
French - Chanson by Victor Hugo
French - Je vous salue Marie by Francis Jammes
French - Namouna chant troisieme by Alfred de Musset
French - Sagesse by Paul Verlaine
German - Sie war ein Bluemlein by Wilhelm Busch
Italian - Davanti San Guido by Giousue Carducci
Italian - Fine della fanciullezza by Eugenio Montale
Italian - Il cinque maggio by Alessandro Manzoni
Polish - Moja Piosnka by Cyprian Norwid
Polish - Oda do Mlodosci by Adam Mickiewicz
Spanish - En Su Tumba by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano
Spanish - Pensando En Ella by Ignacio