A recording of a poem read by its author is no more definitive an “interpretation”
than a recording of a symphony by the composer.
The poem, if it is of any depth and complexity, will have meanings in it concealed from the author;
and should be capable of being read in many ways, and with a variety of emotional emphases.
A good poem, indeed, is one which even the most accomplished reading cannot exhaust.

What the recording of a poem by its author can and should preserve,
is the way that poem sounded to the author when he had finished it.
The disposition of lines on the page, and the punctuation
(which includes the absence of punctuation marks,
when they are omitted where the reader would expect them)
can never give an exact notation of the authors metric.
The chief value of the author´s record, then, is a guide to the rythms.

Another reader, reciting the poem, need not feel bound to reproduce these rhytms:
but, if he has studied the author´s version,
he can assure himself that he is departing from it deliberately, and not from ignorance.