Reading Poetry Out Loud

“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud....... Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.  It remembers that it was first song.”

-Jorge Luis Borges

Thursday evening was bitter cold, too cold--even for winter.  I did not want to go out, but I had agreed to attend a night of poetry at The Arts Center with a friend.  Dr. Mort Sarabakhsh led a presentation on the life Rumi, and Dr. Paach, a gifted orator, read a handful of Rumi’s poems.   Her delivery was brilliant.  She paused when she needed to pause, she emphasized the right words, and her smooth, strong voice made me feel as if I were in the presence of God himself as he conversed with Rumi.

There is power in poetry when it is spoken out loud.  Saved by a Poem, a book I am currently reading, speaks to this.  One of my favorite chapters contains the story of C. C. Carter.  Her grandmother, a woman who “handed out poems like medicine,” taught C.C. to recite poetry.   "You can’t feel a poem just by reading it—you got to speak the poem, act out the poem, then you can know its true meaning.”  One poem she prescribed to her granddaughter was "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou.  As a teenager, C.C. was teased and degraded for her womanly shape, and she struggled.  Her grandmother instructed her to recite "Phenomenal Woman" each morning and then again at night before her evening prayers.  C.C. grew into the woman her grandmother saw fit to nurture, and she became a nationally recognized performance poet and an activist.  C.C.’s poem, "The Herstory of my Hips", is her own potion of magic for those who wish to see the world without looking through the narrow constraints of our culture.  All of this came from a grandmother who spoke with power and through poetry.

My eleven-year-old will occasionally say, “Read me some poetry.” He says this as a way of showing me love, but he never really listens.  I don’t care; I like that he asks.  When I choose to share a poem about nature with my teenager, I get a polite, “That’s nice, Mom."  Sometimes I read something more challenging like, “My Mother's God." Then he is willing to dig in and find meaning.  It thrills me.  My best audience is my husband.  I share a poem with him almost every day.    The only time he complains is when I read Billy Collins.  On numerous occasions, he has quietly commented, “No one should read Billy Collins out loud except Billy Collins.”  When Collins' newest book came out, we agreed to get the audio version.  It‘s good to listen to in the car, and sometimes even the kids pay attention.   Poetry has become part of who we are, and hearing it spoken out loud means we share in something.

 

One thing I’ve learned from reading Saved by a Poem, and from blogging, is that I am not alone in my desire to share poetry with those I love.  But how does one go about reading poetry out loud?  Are there any tricks?  One of the easiest ways to read poetry well is to listen to an audio version of the poet reading her work.  What words does she choose to emphasize?  Where does she pause, and when does she rush forward?  Beyond that, a basic understanding of punctuation is helpful. 

Punctuation is to poetry what note value is to music.    Punctuation establishes the rhythm.  It works to emphasize particular words.   A change in punctuation can affect the entire meaning of a poem.  There are a all kinds of terms--end-stop lines, run-on lines, enjambment, caesura—for understanding where to put the brakes on in poetry, but the basic theme is this:  Pauses come from punctuation not from line breaks.  In other words, read through to the next line if there is no punctuation.  Sometimes the pause--or stop--will come in the middle of a line (that’s called caesura) or maybe at the end  (which makes it an end-stop line).  None of these terms matter so much as knowing that with a comma or a dash, take a short breath.  Come to a full stop for a period.  This can be tricky at first.  You naturally want to take a break at the end of a line, and you can--just a little--but remember that punctuation is king.

The last bit of advice I have for reading poetry out loud is to be natural.  Take it easy; start over if you mess up.  I mess up a lot.  Practice.  This is why sharing with family and friends is ideal.  They love you.  They are as good of an audience as you will find.  Too, they are the ones we value most.  Give them some of the magic–the medicine--of poetry.