I concur!  Thanks... as someone who has been indulging
in the spoken poem in front of audiences for more than
twenty years... I know the truth of what you say!
 
 
Stoneking
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Everett Lee Lady <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 1999 5:38 AM
Subject: Reading Poetry Aloud
 
 
> Well, this is a bit far afield from our discussions of Pound.  But for
> those who may be interested, in response to Christopher Booth's marvelous
> message, here's an article from the Ramblings section of my web site.
>
> ===========
> If you listen to someone like Laurie Anderson, who performs the spoken
> word extremely well, you can realize that one of her secrets is the
> realization that literature, especially poetry, is made up of words.
>
> In reading poetry aloud, each major word should be recognized as a
> thing of beauty in its own right and not just a component of a
> sentence.  When such a very skilled performer such as Laurie Anderson
> reads, they make the effort to give love to each major word in the
> poem.  This word is not just a little nut or bolt that is part of a
> sentence, but the word is something that the performer offers to the
> audience as valuable in its own right.
>
> Some of the ways of giving a word the love it deserves are stress,
> intonation, drawing the word out, or isolating it with a preceding or
> following pause.  Different words deserve emphasis in different ways.
> It's not a mere matter of emphasis, though.  It's a matter of showcasing
> the word, displaying it to the audience as the glorious word it is.
>
> Preachers are very good at this, of course.  Fundamentalist preachers,
> anyway.  They draw the important words out and make them vibrate
> resonantly.  Which is a bit much for a lot of poetry, but that's still
> the basic idea.
>
> The example I like to use is the song ``Eleanor Rigby'' by the Beatles
> (lyrics by John Lennon).  If one reads this in the typical way that
> most students (and many professors) would read a piece of prose, it
> sounds a bit disoriented, with questionable diction, but not otherwise
> very distinguished.
>
> ``Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has
> been.  Lives in a dream.  Waits at the window wearing the face that
> she keeps in a jar by the door.  What is it for?''
>
> Reading the first sentence this way is like having an actor making his
> first appearance on stage immediately rush to the center of the stage
> and start speaking lines.  But the actor (i.e. the words ``Eleanor
> Rigby'') needs to stand on stage a few moments before speaking to give
> the audience a chance to take him in, see who he is.  The music to the
> song makes the singer give the needed amount of love to each of the
> major words simply as words, as well as in their role as part of the
> sentence.
>
> ``Eleanor Rigby ... rice ... church ... wedding ... been.''
>
> It does take quite a bit of rehearsal.  You have to explore each poem
> until you find the tone of voice you think is right for it.  I think
> it's good to start out by doing a really exaggerated interpretation,
> one that may seem somewhat hoakey.  Then you can tone it down to what
> you consider a satisfactorily tasteful level.
>
> <Http://www2.Hawaii.Edu/~lady/ramblings/aloud.html>
>