Poetry–the written or spoken word?
I have many friends who are avid…well, I’m not sure what to call them. On a long commute or a plane ride cross-country, they listen to a book. In other words, they purchase audio books instead of paperbacks or ebooks. If the reader for the audio book is a first-rate master of the spoken word and not like my sophomore English teacher, that’s a fine way to read a few books. In fact, it harkens back to the days before books when storytelling was a vocal tradition.
Poetry has more of a modern oral tradition. Even if the poet writes his poems in silence, he’ll often be called upon to read them aloud. That doesn’t work so well when the poet, like my sophomore English teacher, has a voice that is soporific. Too often, poets and other writers don’t seem to be inspired by their own prose or they just don’t have the skills to read aloud and make it interesting. Many parents do better with bedtime stories for their kids than some poets and writers do with public speaking.
But storytelling, whether poetry or prose, has a strong oral tradition. I can sail through a book without subvocalizing the words, but I’ve watched people read in airports with their Adams apples bobbing up and down. They are enjoying their reading just as much as I do—maybe more, if they’re capturing some of the aural nuances of the language they’re reading in. One of the best ways for a fiction writer to edit dialogue, for example, is simply to read it aloud. If it sounds stiff and elitist, it probably is. If it sounds like ordinary people jousting verbally, you’re probably OK. (Dialect and jive are different—the writer might not hear it often enough to determine if it sounds real.)
Back to poetry. It’s fortunate that it maintains a closer nexus with vocal tradition. I realize that the difference between modern poetry and prose often seems non-existent, but even good free verse has fluidity of forward motion. I’m no expert, mind you. I’m more like the judge who said he couldn’t define porn but he knows it when he sees it. I know when I like a particular piece of poetry although I couldn’t give you any technical reasons why I feel that way. I’m the same way with art, especially modern art. I once visited a Picasso exhibit where several of his early paintings were shown. I thought they were terrible and whispered to my wife, “Now I know why he invented cubism!”
Poems can relate a saga, they can focus on a character, and they can celebrate a setting, but I can tell a good one when I hear it. It’s natural that I prefer some good rhyme and rhythm—I have a music background—but that’s not essential. I’m ok with non-standard versions too. The greatest poem in the English language, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, is written in the obscure villanelle scheme, but it sings to me nonetheless. “The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson reminds me of an untitled painting by the Colombian painter Alejandro Obregon, one of my favorite modern painters and paintings.
And don’t think my favorite poems are always serious. “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll is another favorite. Its pounding rhythm and rhyme is a precursor to tongue-and-cheek horror soundtracks on one hand, and a look back at the Beowulf saga on the other. William Butler Yeats’ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” seems to be a simple ode to an idyllic setting, but it’s really a humorous response to Thoreau’s Walden, which apparently put the famous Irish poet and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre to sleep. (In spite of my membership in The Nature Conservancy, I’m inclined to agree with Yeats.)
I first heard the oral tradition and its relationship to writing from two excellent teachers and masters of the spoken word, my senior high school English teacher, Alan Agol, and my freshman college English teacher, Pulitzer prize-winner N. Scot Momaday. Sections of novels, short stories, and poetry were all fair game to these lovers of the English language. Mr. Agol and Mr. Momaday both pointed out the logical structure used by poets—information that I’ve long since forgotten. But their voices live on in my head. (The first man has long gone into “that good night,” but I think Professor Momaday is still around.)
I was reminded about the vocal tradition in writing at a concert a while ago, of all places. The Schola Cantorum on Hudson presented “Our Mother Earth: Mother Nurture.” I was struck by how many pieces in the program were poems set to choral music. Words-voices-music, the ultimate combination. It was an ethereal welcoming to spring that included poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (French) and Emily Dickinson (American), along with many others. I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked some of these if I had only read them instead of heard them. One powerful piece was the “Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry. I read that before the concert and knew I would like it if the music was any good—it was. The score by Joan Szymko was just as ethereal as the words.
For those who only know me as a thriller and a sci-fi writer, I hope you’re surprised. As an avid reader, I’ll read most anything if it strikes my fancy. Poetry certainly qualifies. Mr. Agol taught me about iambic pentameter (yep, I remember the name at least)—I taught him about the poems that form the basis of Karl Orff’s Carmina Burana. I’m not trying to appear snooty either—Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is a fine poem too, although you’ll probably not find too many English departments across the country studying it as such. (There is a great line in the original that Janis Joplin destroyed in her version. Kristofferson says, “Freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose, and nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free.” Joplin says, “…left to lose, nothing, that’s all that Bobby left me, yeah.” It’s clear who was the better poet!) As I said, I know what I like. As long as you do too, and stick by your guns, there’s nothing elitist about it.
Maybe I’d go the other way, though. If I had written Fahrenheit 451, the Ray Bradbury dystopian sci-fi classic, Walden would have been the first book to go (i.e. I go along with Yeats), followed by all of Jane Austen’s novels. For Walden and Austen lovers, sorry, but those are my preferences. You can read—and listen to—anything you like. That’s what makes the spoken and written word much more important than the invention of the wheel. We have freedom of choice in what we read—unlike Kristofferson’s freedom where being in a relationship is not free, freedom to read what you want is something we don’t want to lose. I’d defend your right to read Jane Austen even, although I’d hope you’d at least let me through a few copies of Pride and Prejudice into Mr. Bradbury’s fire!
In libris libertas….
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