Nor would I be a Poet –It’s finer – own the Ear –Enamoured – impotent – content –The Licence to revere.A privilege so awfulWhat would the dower be,Had I the Art to stun myselfWith Bolts of Melody!

( “I would not paint – a picture” - Emily Dickinson)

Joy AlexanderQueen’s University, Belfast

Hearing the Voice of Poetry

The Wedding GuestWoodcut by Gustav Doré, 1889

Click icon to add picture

Ferocious Alphabets Denis Donoghue. 1981. London: Faber and Faber.

Graphi-reader

The graphireader deals with

writing as such and does not

think of it as transcribing an event

properly construed as vocal and

audible. (p.151)

Epi-reader

Epireaders say to poems: I want to hear you. (p.152)

Reading Frost’s “Desert Places” islike reading Hardy’s “During WindAnd Rain” or “The Haunter”:youdon’t even think of language inany way that separates it from

thevoice and the feelings that have made the voice what it is.

(p.130)

The How of Literature Ruth Finnegan Oral Tradition, 20/2 (2005): 164-187

Literature is experienced in terms of itsimmediacy, in the temporal moment. This can come in a variety of forms: through embodied enactment, for example, or public theatrical display, or, more subtly, through the enperformancing of a written text, the“now” when the reader personallyencounters and re-creates it—“performs” it.

(p. 176)

You learn to read poetry by reading poetry.

You learn to read poetry by reading poetry.

Find as many ways as possible to get young people reading poems aloud for themselves.

l(a

leaffa

ll

s)onel

 iness

e e cummings

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeahShe loves you, yeah, yeah, yeahShe loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

You think you lost your love,When I saw her yesterday.It's you she's thinking ofAnd she told me what to say.She says she loves youAnd you know that can't be bad.Yes, she loves youAnd you know you should be glad.

She said you hurt her soShe almost lost her mind.But now she said she knowsYou're not the hurting kind.She says she loves youAnd you know that can't be bad.Yes, she loves youAnd you know you should be glad. Ooh!

You learn to read poetry by reading poetry.

Find as many ways as possible to get young people reading poems aloud for themselves.

You learn to read poetry by reading poetry.

Poets write poems in such a way as to direct us to read them as they intend.

Find as many ways as possible to get young people reading poems aloud for themselves.

Influences: The power of T. S. Eliot.Seamus Heaney. Boston Review, October, 1989.

http://bostonreview.net/BR14.5/heaney.html

Re-construct:4 four-line verses (counting the title as a line).The only punctuation is one full stop, which is not at the end.

To a Poor Old Womanmunching a plum on the street, a paper bagof them in her hand. They taste good to her.They taste good to her. They taste good toher. You can see it by the way she givesherself to the one half sucked out in her hand. Comforted, a solace of ripe plumsseeming to fill the air. They taste good toher.

To a Poor Old WomanWilliam Carlos Williams

munching a plum on   the street a paper bag of them in her hand

They taste good to her They taste good   to her. They taste good to her

You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand

Comforted a solace of ripe plums seeming to fill the air They taste good to her

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

I’m real cool. I left school. I lurk late. I strike straight. I sing sin. I thin gin. I jazz June. I’ll die soon.

We real cool. WeLeft school. We

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We

Jazz June.

Tone of last line:

(a) factual

(b) sad

(c) bitter

(d) other

THE POOL PLAYERS SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL

by Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. WeLeft school. We

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

reading/hearing the poem

reading/hearing the poem

pupil discovery rather than teacher talk

reading/hearing the poem

pupil discovery rather than teacher talk

inclusive – accessible to all

golden shovel

We die soon.We real cool.

golden shovel

We die soon.

A Harlem Pool HallThe Golden Shovel

We real cool.

golden shovel

Perhaps the kind of effort (as sacrifice or self-restraint)associated with listening in the classroom is the product of resistance, by teachers and pupils, to fixed outcomes. ('Listening, Juggling and Travelling in Philosophical Space,' J Haynes and K Murris, http://www.arasite.org/pwc.html)

To see things as the poet sees them I must share his consciousness and not attend to it; I must look where he Looks and not turn round to face him; I must make of himnot a spectacle but a pair of spectacles. (The Personal Heresy, C S Lewis and E M W Tillyard, 1939)

The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender, Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (An Experiment in Criticism, C S Lewis, 1961)

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.” Robert Frost.

“Keats is my guy, but Yeats has endless discovery. I read it out loud to myself because then it becomes comprehensible. I ask my kids’ teachers why they don’t have to learn poetry by heart. It’s a drag, a bit poofy, but boy, does it stay with you.”

Bob Geldof.

“I tell kids that poetry has to be part of education because it is the very point of education, as exam-passing is not.”

Les Murray.