PennSound, a project of the University of Pennsylvania, is a Web-based archive for noncommercial distribution of the largest collection of poetry sound files on the Internet. PennSound offers a large variety of digital recordings of poems — currently 1,500 and fast growing — mostly as song-length singles.

“This has never been done before,” said Al Filreis, PennSound co-director, English professor and director of Penn’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. “Most of the electronic sound files available to the public are of entire poetry recordings, 30 or more minutes long, with no tracking of individual cuts or poems.”

“We believe philosophically that, since there is no significant profit to be gained by the sale of recorded poetry — unlike music — many, many more poets will continue to grant us permission to use their work,” adds Filreis.
The archive includes works by Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams and many others.