RECORDS: Closing the Poetry Gap

At 22, Marianne Roney discovered that she was not cut out to be an Organization Woman—at least not with Period Records, where she worked writing album notes. Unable to persuade her bosses to record some far-out releases, such as medieval music or modern U.S. poetry ("Let's do medieval American poetry," burbled one executive), Marianne quit and formed Caedmon* Records to produce talking records that would not talk down to their audience. Her partner: Barbara Cohen, a classmate at New York City's Hunter College. Last week, eight years and some 200 releases later,...