Long before the print­ing press, before parch­ment and papyrus, poet­ry was a strict­ly oral form. Many of the fea­tures we asso­ciate with verse—rhyme, meter, rep­e­ti­tion, and extend­ed sim­i­les—orig­i­nat­ed as mnemon­ic devices for poets and their audi­ences in times when bards com­posed extem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly from pre­de­ter­mined for­mu­las. And while the image of the Home­r­ic poet, strum­ming a lyre and nar­rat­ing the deeds of gods and heroes seems quaint, poet­ry is still very much an oral art, in cul­tures tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern. Right this very moment, in cities across the world, poets and audi­ences gath­er in bars, cafes, book­stores, tem­ples, and libraries to hear poems spo­ken, rapped, sung, chant­ed, etc.

But we no longer assign to the poet god-like pow­er and fame. Those acco­lades are now reserved for actors and musi­cians. And while poets are often per­fect­ly good read­ers of their own work, some­times there’s noth­ing so excit­ing as hear­ing the utter­ly dis­tinc­tive voice of, say, James Earl Jones or Antho­ny Hop­kins, turn­ing over the words of a favorite poem, mak­ing them rum­ble and rus­tle in ways they nev­er did flat on the page. So today we bring you some mod­ern gods read­ing the ancient form, begin­ning with the great, grav­el-voiced Tom Waits, who reads the great, grav­el-voiced Charles Bukowski’s “The Laugh­ing Heart” (top, full text here). A more per­fect union of read­er and poet you may nev­er find.

Also above, watch my favorite com­ic actor, and prob­a­bly yours, Bill Mur­ray, read my favorite arcane mod­ernist poet, Wal­lace Stevens. Mur­ray reads Steven’s “The Plan­et on the Table” and “The Rab­bit as the King of Ghosts” (Orig­i­nal text here and here). His unaf­fect­ed Mid­west­ern voice sounds noth­ing like Steven’s posh East­ern bari­tone, but he brings to the poems a gen­uine ten­der­ness that Stevens’ read­ings lack.

Final­ly, the unmis­tak­able voice of Sean Con­nery (backed by the music of Van­ge­lis) beau­ti­ful­ly con­veys the epic jour­ney of C.P. Cavafy’s “Itha­ca” (above, full text here). These are but three exam­ples of the art of actors read­ing poets. Below, you’ll find sev­er­al oth­ers, along with a cou­ple of writers—Tennessee Williams and Harold Bloom—thrown in for good mea­sure. Hear­ing poet­ry read, and read well, cre­ates space in a widen­ing sea of dis­trac­tions for that most ancient of human crafts.

• Orson Welles and Richard Bur­ton read Samuel Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Antho­ny Hop­kins reads “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Lee Remick reads two of Emi­ly Dick­in­son’s poems, “This is my let­ter to the world” and “Dying.”
• Ten­nessee Williams reads Hart Crane’s “The Bro­ken Tow­er” and “The Hur­ri­cane” (Orig­i­nal text here and here)
• Michael Caine reads Rud­yard Kipling’s “If” (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Sir Antho­ny Hop­kins reads “Do Not Go Gen­tle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (Orig­i­nal text here.)
• Bill Mur­ray reads poems by Emi­ly Dick­in­son, Bil­ly Collins and Lorine Niedeck­er at a con­struc­tion site.
• British actors read World War I poet­ry by Wil­fred Owen and Rupert Brooke.
• Harold Bloom recites ‘Tea at the Palaz of Hoon” by Wal­lace Stevens (Orig­i­nal text here.)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness