OMG, the recording by Alan Davis-Drake was awesome! Also sexy, though I can't put my finger on why, exactly. Maybe because of the way his voice goes low and sort of purring at the end? Yum.

I'm curious: how many takes you usually do before you have a recording you feel satisfied with?

Hmm, it depends what you mean by take. I mean, I usually only do one recording of a poem, because I'll have practiced it beforehand enough that I know how I want to read it. Of course, sometimes I still stumble over a word, but then I'll just redo that line and cut out the stumble when I edit. I tend to view it as a performance in the moment, and while I do cut out mistakes and pauses, I don't do any other production stuff. I mean, I know there are people who view a recording as something they create at the editing stage as much as at the recording phase--they'll do lots of takes of individual lines, and then splice together the finished product by choosing among the lines, or splicing bits of lines together, or even splicing a word together from different parts! It's really up to your individual style. I know the way people do recording and editing varies wildly, and there really is no right way to do it.

*tabinates your links*