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Monday, June 30, 2008

I'll tell you a secret.... I have a hang-up about poetry.

I sit here with my mind somewhere else... I'm thinking, can I be certain the lawn doesn't shrill in anguish at the sound of a mower? Okay, seriously I'm really thinking about the existence of words without sound. They don't require sound do they? Of course not... I'm plotting them out here on the computer and there is no sound, save for the clicking of the keys and you can't distinguish the sound I made for and from you.

When I was in high school our Latin teacher referred to Latin as a written language as opposed to a spoken language. I'm imagining if today English were strictly a written language how different communication would be. Certainly less spontaneous.

Poetry readings would take on a whole new meaning. Imagine a poet walking into a room of eager poetry consumers. Theater style seating. The poet passes out sheets of paper to the some 25 to 30 people who showed up. Then he stands back and watches the non-verbal reactions to what is read, and imagines what parts the people are reacting to and just what those reactions mean.

I don't suppose any of you are buying this scene. You probably are even questioning that we got more than two dozen people to any kind of poetry reading. Why am I even talking about this idea? Well, as much as I do enjoy doing readings (where I read aloud my own poetry) I am convinced that spoken word poetry still lacks something critical to language. That is to see the poem on a printed page. To see the words - the spaces between. The black and the white. The image and the lack of image and the whole visual that creates both. I guess simply put, I want all poetry to be viewed as concrete poetry. It's just a little hang-up I have.

4 comments:

Julie Carter said...

I'm not so sure words don't require sound. I'm one of those people who hear words in my head even as I'm reading silently. I create pronunciations even for words in other languages. If I'm reading a book and a character has a name I can't pronounce intuitively, I need to pick a way to say it so that I can read it without hesitating.

Soooo, am I just a freak? Don't answer that!

Michael A. Wells said...

Okay, I admit, I hear words in my head too. I don't like to talk about it... it's just that I can't seperate myself from the visual side of poetry. I Always want to see it on the page.

Lucindyl said...

I like to see it on the page, but I've got to hear the wordplay. For me, poetry needs to be lyrical, and the purpose for spaces, punctuation and line breaks is to indicate the sounds of the poem.

I like what Hall has to say, too, about the feel of the poem in the mouth as it's read aloud, the orally kinesthetic factor.

Let's face it: if the stuff were melted chocolate, we'd be stripping and rolling in it.

Michael A. Wells said...

I really don't want to dispense with the verbal aspect of poetry, it is just that I find that many are more inclined towards the spoken word and it is aspect of the printed word I fear is more at risk and it is a part of poetry I cling to. Hence, my hangup.