Acoustic Writing.

[Katie-Ellen]

Do we think this applies likewise to prose?

Musicality to soothe the savage beast. What is happening to us, lost in a book or a song or poem?

"Reading your poetry out loud is crucial and absolutely indispensable because wherever we reckon the meaning of a poem might lie, we want to admit that it's got as much to do with the noise it makes when we hear it aloud, as it has to do with what the words mean when we see them written down on the page.
In a really fundamental way, I think poetry is an acoustic form and we've slightly forgotten that in the last thousand years. Since the invention of the book, the aliveness of poetry has been perhaps slightly pushed to the edge of things." - Andrew Motion

 

[Marc Joan]

I'm probably in a minority, but I don't need the acoustics. In fact, they interfere with the far more beautiful [to me] sounds in my head. If I were to try to read aloud 'I see the boys of summer' or 'A subaltern's love song', they would sound terrible. But in my head, they are wonderful. And I even hate it when poets read their own stuff - it always seems to sound pretentious - at least to me....
Like I said, I am probably in a minority.

 

[Karen Gray]

I get my mother in law to read mines lol. I can't do it right, but she is an awesome reader, especially where poetry is concerned. Some of the fav's I have written like Nature's Dressing Gown and 19th September read so much better once I had heard Barbara reading them out loud

 

[flootzavut]

I don't always read aloud exactly, but I tend to read out loud in my head, which I find really useful for keeping stuff smooth and allowing it to flow smoothly for the reader.

 

[Karen Gray]

I don't always read aloud exactly, but I tend to read out loud in my head, which I find really useful for keeping stuff smooth and allowing it to flow smoothly for the reader.

Now that you mention it... I do this too!

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Oh, I burble quietly aloud, too. Mark of sanity, talking to yourself

 

[Karen Gray]

Thats about the time we start arguing with word over placement of commas and such

 

[flootzavut]

I don't know if I ever talk aloud while I write, though it wouldn't much surprise me. I suspect I express a lot more than I actually realise when I'm in the zone

 

[Richard Sutton]

Poetry seems to me still akin to song, which is a performed art. I always like the sounds of my own poetry better in my head than aloud, which is probably why so little of it ever meets the light of day.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Oh, go on, fetch it out. My verse, I wouldn't call it poetry, this isn't how it's done these days, always, or at least it has so far, come out to a nursery rhyme beat: here's a for instance:

Compute Awe

God@pearlygates.com
Designed a World in RAM and ROM
The Programme’s called Till Kingdom Come
No viruses have crashed it yet
Despite the Devil@hell.net
He’s tried with 'Horsemen', 'Chaos', 'Sin'
Old Nick the Hacker means to win
So far he’s failed; we’re still plugged in
And hear the God- Computer hum
The universal sound of ‘Ommm’
Creation new and never-ending
In countless files with files still pending
From here to nebulas most far
From a single cell to a giant star
From all a life from birth to death
And in-between it’s every breath
Our highest inspiration
And spirit’s destination
The ROM His Universal Laws
The RAM our choices, chances, flaws
And Life that cannot be destroyed
Its bits and bytes just redeployed
In awe I stand
In hope I pray
The Programme runs till Judgment Day.

 

[flootzavut]

This reminded me instantly (just because of the computer theme) of a Clive James poem that starts:

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg.

It really made me giggle. Whole thing is on his site here: http://www.clivejames.com/poetry/james/windows