[78-L] Radio Poets

[Donna Halper]

I was reading a newspaper article about the popular poet Edgar A. Guest, 
who was one of the earliest poets to embrace radio and do readings on 
several stations.  The article that said in January 1922, the Victor 
Talking Machine Company released "the first of a series of Guest Victor 
Records," which contained the poet reading three of his most well-known 
poems.   Does this mean he had his own subsidiary label, or was this a 
public-relations strategy to capitalize on how famous and beloved Guest 
was at that time by claiming Victor named a series of records after 
him?  If anyone has heard this record (were there others?), is it just 
his voice, or do they put music in the background?  I wonder if there 
were other "radio poets" who made recordings.  I know Amy Lowell did 
several radio readings in the early to mid-1920s (before her untimely 
death) but I have never heard that she recorded anything.