It's true... I couldn't understand Chaucer's genius until I read the General Prologue out loud to my roommate. The thing is, these poems read silently are nice, but the true genius of the poet comes through when you realize how tough it is to say such profound things in such a rigid, rythmic, lineated format. I'm no traitor to my generation, but Middle-English/The Renaissance > Def Poetry Jam/ "Stars Are Blind".
schmanciness.garlickbytesSeptember 11 2006, 16:12:05 UTC
Silent poetry is the prophylactic of anonymous unions--the intimate and immediate touch of the disembodied voice curling into unidentified ears; the heart's recognition of cadence and music before the deliberate mapping out of iambs, dactylls; the lips and tongue folding and flicking, shrugging into the same shapes of other lips and tongues centuries ago, oceans away; the incidental coupling of scrawled patterns to living resonance, tattooed skins to thrum of muscle, ink in flight. And what of the poems that began and spread and slept in sound, the oral heirlooms not yet caught and pinned and traced with pens for their phonetic silhouettes? Are we to deny their existence?
So speaks your reader. I'm actually okay with "silent reading" for poetry, because when I read inside, I'm hearing the words inside my head. And isn't it true that your brain reacts in the same way to both imagined and actual sensual stimulants because it can't tell the difference really?
this is probably why i'm south campus, but the first thought i had after reading that quote was that it was rather annoying. i dislike the fact that it says "we do violence...." to me, the author is trying to sound intelligent, when really all s/he is doing is being overdramatic.
that being said, the phrase makes a valid point. poetry sounds better when spoken outloud.
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I'm no traitor to my generation, but Middle-English/The Renaissance > Def Poetry Jam/ "Stars Are Blind".
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So speaks your reader. I'm actually okay with "silent reading" for poetry, because when I read inside, I'm hearing the words inside my head. And isn't it true that your brain reacts in the same way to both imagined and actual sensual stimulants because it can't tell the difference really?
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http://psyham.livejournal.com/25510.html
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that being said, the phrase makes a valid point. poetry sounds better when spoken outloud.
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