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    In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works: In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works, #1
    In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works: In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works, #1
    In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works: In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works, #1
    Ebook69 pages37 minutes

    In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works: In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works, #1

    By Jeffrey Lant

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    About this ebook

    Each of us, in our individual lives, has a moment or two of epiphany. That is to say, a moment of surpassing importance and significance. Mine took place in summertime at the Downers Grove Library.

    My mother had begun taking me to the library very early in my life.

    I was voracious about stories, could never get enough of them, and was always grateful to be advised on their presentation and explanation. In this way, the librarians came to present me with readings from the great poets... people like Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg.

    I can well remember being told by the ladies one day that they had a present for me... and so they stationed me in a rather dark, gray room, everything cool to the touch, and turned on their latest acquisition.

    "I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
    I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
    (And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
    I shan't be gone long. -- You come too.

    I'm going out to fetch the little calf
    That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
    It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
    I shan't be gone long. -- You come too."

    "The Pasture", Robert Frost (1915)

    I played this poem so often, each time hearing a little more of its author, the often irritated and irascible Robert Frost. I like the way he rolled those three little words: "you come too." Only he didn't pronounce it like that. Great poets have great eccentricities, and his were encapsuled in his rendering of these three words. Thus "ah you come too". It was a call to come and be sociable, come and share, come and see your neighborhood and everything in it.

    So powerful and so unfading were these words that when Robert Frost's Cambridge home came on the market, I almost bought it, just so that I could sit in the parlor and read my envious friends from the poet's ghost that resided there with all its poems, just for me.

    Now, I have the opportunity to read my own works... to you, and hope that you will hear just how personal they are, and how each one, so powerfully written, touches your heart, because that is what I aim for.

    This book contains five of my favorite essays... the one that I wrote when I turned 65; the one bringing you inside a great nor'easter; the one detailing the foolish hijinx of Captain Owen Honors, United States Navy; the one detailing the turbulent life of Amy Winehouse, a warning if there ever was one; and finally, one about the Andrews Sisters... three girls who kept America jumping throughout its greatest war, and reminded us what we were fighting for.

    I have a special word for all you young people reading these essays. You have so many media choices that you may well overlook the importance and value of hearing authors read from their own works. This is something you need to do... you need to hear what they write, in their own way, and you need to recite what they write in your own way. If you cannot do this, you will miss so much of the pleasure of both author and reader.

    And this special note to you library ladies: you did me such a life-changing favor so many years ago. Now, I want you to take what I have written, what I have recited here, and pass on the importance of the writers voice for the next generation, and the next after that.

    And now without further ado, here's the first volume in this series. Read the text along with the video, then read it again, until you are as expert in my quirks and foibles as I am myself.

    Dr. Jeffrey Lant

    From The Red Drawing Room

    Cambridge, Massachusetts,August 2016

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJeffrey Lant
    Release dateAug 15, 2016
    ISBN9781533776907
    In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works: In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works, #1
    Author

    Jeffrey Lant

    Dr. Jeffrey Lant is known worldwide. He started in the media business when he was 5 years old, a Kindergartner in Downers Grove, Illinois, publishing his first newspaper article. Since then Dr. Lant has earned four university degrees, including the PhD from Harvard. He has taught at over 40 colleges and universities and is quite possibly the first to offer satellite courses. He has written over 50 books, thousands of articles and been a welcome guest on hundreds of radio and television programs. He has founded several successful corporations and businesses including his latest at …writerssecrets.com His memoirs “A Connoisseur’s Journey” has garnered nine literary prizes that ensure its classic status. Its subtitle is “Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy.” A good read by this man of so many letters. Such a man can offer you thousands of insights into the business of becoming a successful writer. Be sure to sign up now at www.writerssecrets.co

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      Book preview

      In My Own Voice. Reading from My Collected Works - Jeffrey Lant

      Introduction

      https://youtu.be/yXOOvSoeBPw

      C:\Users\Pat\Downloads\Introduction.jpg

      Reading by Dr. Jeffrey Lant at: https://youtu.be/yXOOvSoeBPw

      ––––––––

      Each of us, in our individual lives, has a moment or two of epiphany. That is to say, a moment of surpassing importance and significance. Mine took place along the hot and sticky asphalt streets of summertime Downers Grove, Illinois.

      You could follow my progress by the skid marks in the asphalt. Chances are, I was on my way to the library. There was a perfectly logical reason for this speed into the metropolis, and that was the fact that it was one of the few buildings in the community that was air conditioned. Therefore, it needs no explanation from me. Everyone in the state of Illinois knows the peril of that temperature, and the need to escape it.

      My mother had begun taking me to the library very early in my life. I was such a regular participant in the programs and readings the librarians delivered, that I had my own chair with my own name, rather like a Hollywood producer, Ladd.

      I was voracious about stories, could never get enough of them, and was always grateful to be advised on their presentation and explanation. In this way, the librarians came to present me with readings from the great poets... people like Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg.

      I can well remember being told by the ladies one day that they had a present for me... and so they stationed me in a rather dark, gray room, everything cool to the touch, and turned on their latest acquisition.

      "I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

      I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

      (And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

      I shan't be gone long.—You come too.

      I'm going out to fetch the little calf

      That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

      It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

      I shan't be gone long.—You come too."

      The Pasture, Robert Frost (1915)

      I played this poem so often, each time hearing a little more of its author, the often irritated and irascible Robert Frost. I like the way he rolled those three little words: you come too. Only he didn't pronounce it like that. Great poets have great eccentricities, and his were encapsuled in his rendering of these three words. Thus ah you come too. It was a call to come and be sociable, come and share, come and see your neighborhood and everything in

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