Reading Poetry Aloud

If you are like most people, you have not read aloud since the last time you read to a child or since you were in school. For many people, reading aloud just does not feel good – maybe it conjures up all those bad memories of being called on by a teacher to read in front of the rest of the class. But it is time to lose those fears because, after all, poetry is meant to be read aloud. That is right, aloud – as though you were delivering the poem to an attentive audience.

Why should you read poems aloud?

Here are the three most important reasons you should read poetry aloud:

• Poets design their poem to be read aloud. The earliest poetry was oral. People chanted it, sang it, recited it – and they still do. From its earliest forms to the poem being written today, poetry has kept its close alliance with speaking and singing. The music of poetry – that is its sounds and rhythms – is not just for the eye and the mind, it is meant to be given voice. In fact, as they write, most poets imagine someone reading their poem aloud. Poetry is supposed to be a living thing, and poets write accordingly, with an audience in mind.

• You will experience the whole poem if you read it aloud. Poems read aloud are different animals from poems read silently. A big part of poetry is sound and rhythm – and the best way to get the full impact of these important elements is to put them into action by pronouncing them wit your own throat, lungs, teeth, lips, and tongue. Sound and rhythm do not exist just for their own sakes, either: they exist to give you pleasure (because humans naturally like music and rhythm) and lead you to the poem’s meanings. Commas, spaces between words, line endings, and other pauses may hint at melancholy, hesitancy, or passion. Punctuation has its traditional functions (exclamations! questions? wistfulness …), and often also is used in unexpected ways – or not used at all. You may miss all these signals if you do not read aloud.

• You will understand and remember more if you read aloud. Memory and understanding are everything. If you remember something and understand it, it takes up long-term residence inside your brain. And then you can use that knowledge as a building block to discover more and more about the world of poetry.

Do not believe us? Read these four sad lines (by the Greek poet Sappho) silently to yourself:

The moon has set

and the Pleiades. Middle of the

night! Time passes,

and I lie here alone.

Reading silently is a great way to make a poem’s acquaintance. Here, you can instantly absorb the situation: The speaker is lying alone at night. The speaker can feel time passes, and she is not thrilled, apparently, at being up this late.

Now read the lines aloud. Pause a little at the end of each line. Notice how each pause carries a little information, a little jolt of feeling with it.

The moon has set

and the Pleiades

If you look up the word Pleiades in your handy reference book, you will find out that the Pleiades are that familiar cluster of stars at the top of the sky. So maybe the word Pleiades is just a time-reference: The moon goes down, and then this cluster of stars follows. That could take quite a while (depending on how the constellations are arranged that night) – it gives you the feeling that a good amount of time has passed.

Now you come to another pause:

Middle of the [pause]

night!

You can almost hear the speaker groan. Pausing helps emphasize how weary and restless the speaker is. You may even begin to wonder why the speaker is staying awake. Is she waiting for someone? You may spot an answer in the last two lines:

Time passes, [pause]

and I lie here alone.

This insomniac speaker is alone. You get a feeling (without being told) that she wishes she were not. Where do you get it from? Her wakefulness, maybe, or her awareness of time passing and her solitude.

One more word about the Pleiades: In mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Greek gods Atlas and Pleione. And the hunter Orion – also a constellation in the sky – was thought to be eternally chasing them (without ever catching them). So each time you looked at the Pleiades – at least, if you were Sappho – you may have thought of the chase of love, which would not help your insomnia or lonesomeness at all.

Keep you reference books handy when you are reading poetry!

Chances are, you understand Sappho’s poem better for having read it aloud.

And that is the way she would have wanted it.

#Language #Poetry #Literature #Poet #Reading