Poetry (Unabridged)

Written by James Joyce

Narrated by Digital Voice Marcus G

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

Though James Joyce earned his literary fame mostly through his short stories and novels, he also published several short books of poetry. In fact Chamber Music, a collection of thirty-six short love poems, was his first major independent publication.

The title of Chamber Music is said to have come from the sound of urine tinkling into a chamber pot—though this was actually a story made up by Joyce after the fact. As he grew older, he came to dislike the title, saying that it was too complacent. Though the story of the title’s genesis suggests the poems are bawdy and raw, in fact they’re each gentle and lyrical love poems, strictly rooted in the romantic tradition. Though the poems didn’t sell well, they met with some critical acclaim from the likes of Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats.

“Gas from a Burner” is a short broadside published by Joyce in 1912. He composed it as he was preparing to leave his home, Ireland, for the last time, before embarking on a new life of exile on the continent. Its targets are his publishers, who for almost a decade stalled the publication of his short story collection Dubliners. They frustrated him to to such an extent that he thought they were actively conspiring against him to prevent his controversial manuscript from ever seeing the light of day. “Gas from a Burner” crystallizes the rage he felt at that pious, hypocritical, and prudish establishment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Falcon Press
• Release date: Mar 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798868767319

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. One of the most influential writers of the 20th Century, Joyce's life was punctuated by poverty, critical controversy and self-imposed exile. Joyce was one of the pioneering figures of modernism and counted W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound amongst his earliest supporters. Before his death in 1941, Joyce had published Ulysses, Finnegan's Wake, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners; works that today are recognized as amongst the greatest achievements in literature.