First week of school! 90 degrees and shifting the energy to self and exploration! Looking forward to seeing you all on Sat.
THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY is not silent, it is a speaking - out-loud voice in your head: it is spoken, a voice is saying it as you read. It's the writer's words, of course, in a literary sense his or her “voice” but the sound of that voice is the sound of your voice. Not the sound your friends know or the sound of a tape played back but your voice caught in the dark cathedral of your skull, your voice heard by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts and what you know by feeling, having felt. It is your voice saying, for example, the word “barn” that the writer wrote but the “barn” you say is a barn you know or knew. The voice in your head, speaking as you read, never says anything neutrally – some people hated the barn they knew,some people love the barn they know so you hear the word loaded and a sensory constellation is lit: horse-gnawed stalls, hayloft, black heat tape wrapping a water pipe, a slippery spilled chirr of oats from a split sack, the bony, filthy haunches of cows . . . . And “barn” is only a noun – no verb or subject has entered into the sentence yet! The voice you hear when you read to yourself is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you.
Thomas Lux New and Selected Poems (New York 1997, pg. 15))
First week of school! 90 degrees and shifting the energy to self and exploration! Looking forward to seeing you all on Sat.
ReplyDeleteTHE VOICE YOU HEAR
WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY
is not silent, it is a speaking -
out-loud voice in your head: it is spoken,
a voice is saying it
as you read. It's the writer's words,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her “voice” but the sound
of that voice is the sound of your voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word “barn”
that the writer wrote
but the “barn” you say
is a barn you know or knew.
The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally – some people
hated the barn they knew,some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled chirr of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows . . . .
And “barn” is only a noun – no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you.
Thomas Lux New and Selected Poems (New York 1997, pg. 15))
Love this! Going to read it to my kids. Thanks!
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