JIM BISHOP READS, by Jim Bishop; Vox Audio, Magdalena, N.M., 2007; “Jim Bishop Reads,” a recording of 23 poems made in 2006 by University of Maine English instructor Jim Bishop, revises a previous CD, “Jim Bishop Reads from Mother Tongue,” that was pieced together in 1994 from decades-old recordings and whose distribution was very limited, at the author’s insistence. Bishop’s concern over the quality, not only of the recordings but of the readings, is a key point. Most of the poems on this CD are from Bishop’s book “Mother Tongue,” published in Portland by Contraband Press in 1975. The poems on the earlier CD had been copied from aged cassette tapes; the sound quality was extremely uneven, and so were the performances. Continue reading →