I’ve been recording audio messages for the past few months. Oftentimes that means I read poems aloud to see what they do, to learn how they work, and to share them with a friend (almost exclusively Alex). It’s a different beast climbing up, over, and across aural landscapes. I’ve been thinking about trying these recordings out elsewhere, and so, Hey! Presto!, here we are.
This one is from Martin Shaw and Tony Hoagland’s gorgeous collection, Cinderbiter. “The Hermit’s Hut” it’s called. I recorded this on a morning commute along the river (you may notice the, uh, plodding). I’m no podcast nut, and I own zero audio equipment to make this sound halfway decent. I’m aiming more for the experiences that speaking poetry and listening to poetry can bring and how these entry points into a poem in turn open other doors into worlds far more vast—at least for me since sound is my primary way of sensing. Hooked on Phonics worked for me!
I have a few more recordings stacked up and rattling around in my archives. I’ll be sharing readings and commentary on what it’s like to perform a poem and how I want to grow this side of my writing speech voice. In a way, I’m coming full circle here given that I reinvigorated my love for poetry by witlessly volunteering to read a couple of my poems at an open mic gathering in 2019. The start of my degeneracy.
If you are a paid subscriber, you’ll get these audio-newsletter-podcast -episodes each time I place them in a bottle and let the currents do their work. I’ll occasionally Robin Hood myself and smuggle one or two across the border into the Free State, but such a perilous act is too foolish to repeat too often. You will have to be among the subscribed initiates to experience the full fumbling of my foray into Speech Arts.
In the meantime, cheers to more beauty and more language!
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