Download or read book Songs of Ourselves written by Joan Shelley Rubin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a strikingly original and rich portrait of the uses of verse in America, Rubin shows how the sites and practices of reciting poetry influenced readers' lives and helped them to find meaning in a poet's words. By blurring the boundaries between "high" and "popular" poetry as well as between modern and traditional, it creates a fuller, more democratic way of studying our poetic language and ourselves.