“There is more excitement about poetry among students, teachers and non-university-affiliated Philadelphians than I’ve seen in the past two decades,” says University of Pennsylvania English professor Al Filreis, the director of Penn’s Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, explaining why he’s joined with fellow prof Charles Bernstein to launch PennSound, “an online clearinghouse of recent and rare poetry readings” that offers poetry via MP3 and Real Audio files. As Andrew Parks reports in a Philadelphia City Paper story, it’s ” the largest collection of poetry downloads on the Internet.” Says Parks, “If there’s one thing PennSound offers that the written page cannot, it’s the performance aspect of poetry: the way authors roll their Rs, pause from time to time, or emphasize specific syllables to added effect. Therein lies the true potential for growing beyond its built-in audience.”