Hi, and thanks for reading! Today is Monday, so we’re going to talk about poetry.
If you want to go directly to the poetry exercise, and skip all this “recipe blog” backstory, scroll to the next subhead.
My first real involvement in a poetry “scene” was in Phoenix, where I was heavily involved in the slam poetry community. For nearly two years, I hosted the weekly Phoenix poetry slam, and I served as the volunteer coordinator when IWPS (Individual World Poetry Slam) came to downtown Phoenix in 2014.
Since leaving Arizona and coming to New York, I have primarily been a “page poet.” Which is to say I write/publish poetry that I rarely read aloud in front of others, much less perform. But that doesn’t mean I’m not reading poems out loud; I can’t write without doing that. If you hacked into my home security cameras, you’d catch me wandering through the apartment murmuring “Moon, june, junebugs, junebugging? Junebuggy? Bugging out? Junebugging out?” to myself.
This week I’ve been reading Robert Pinsky’s book The Sounds of Poetry, which is very short and entirely focused on sound. Surprise! As advertised! Pinsky characterizes poetry as a physical art form, in the same way music or dance is. There is not, necessarily, a performative element; rather the act of hearing poetry has a direct effect on our physical bodies. We sense it. When we’re reading it on the page, whether we realize it or not, we can “hear” it in our mind, to some degree, and understand the cadence and intonation that we hear when it is read aloud.
Today, we’re going to mumble to ourselves, together, which makes it less alarming. Or maybe more because we’re all connected by some psychic network.
Exercise: Speak Now (Hattie’s Version)
So. For this exercise, you’ll need to do a little homework. Collect three to five poems – your own, famous ones, random entries from Poem-a-Day, whatever. You could do lyrics, too; if you want to be really on the nose, try the KISS song I’ve been singing all damn day since I had the idea for this exercise.
A variety of poems/pieces will create more vocab and style diversity, which may make this exercise easier for you.
Take the poems you’ve assembled. One by one, read your poems out loud. Try to read them as naturally, as conversationally, as possible, following the flow of punctuation. Avoid using “poetry voice.” Don’t perform them, just read them.
As you read your poems out loud, keep a running list. What feels and sounds best in your mouth/ears/brain? What words or phrases feel the best to say? To hear? Write them down.
Pay close attention to rhythm, speed, meter, flow. Write down the sections of each poem that flow the most naturally. Or write down the sections that require you to stop, think, and really listen.
If there are words with dual meanings, write those down. Homophones, near-rhymes, and any alliteration that feels good on your tongue.
Repeat this process for each poem. Once you’re done, you should have a strange hodgepodge of sounds that may or may not “go” together.
Now, take your list of auditory detritus and read THAT out loud. Try it all out of order. Read some of the phrases backward. Mix and match phrases from different poems. Add in phrases that you’ve heard before, which “go” with what’s on the page. Add in phrases you just made up (I did this once with the phrase “roachscuttle underthrum” and that remains one of my proudest poems).
If there is a central sound in your poem (long drawn out “oooohs” or hard staccato consonants), think about the mood of those sounds. Instead of trying to force your words to meet a theme, create a poem that feels how it sounds. Keep reading and re-reading it out loud. Record yourself and listen back, if you want. Write around the dominant sound.
I think writing “for the ear” is good to do, if not all the time, then at least frequently. It can help a lot with formatting your poems, too, or creating a grammar for them. I hope this helps you understand the flow of your verse and maybe feel a more authentic authorial “voice” come through as you keep doing it (because it’s…YOUR voice!).