Getting your poetry fix aurally.

The best way to read poetry is to not to. That is, get someone else to do it for you. Especially if you're just starting out reading poetry, it can help to get a sense of how it sounds when read by the author or an actor. Too many people read poetry and think they have to pause at the end of each line break. (Not true, you follow the punctuation as in any other writing.)

So, shall we all host tea-parties and invite poets? Well you could try that - but they might resent having to perform in exchange for their cream cake and Darjeeling. You could go to some readings at a cafe or pub, but I confess I don't do that after some horrible reading-related incidents at university. Far too scary and confronting. Especially if the poet comes up to you afterwards to ask you what you thought. (Is "Eep?" a suitable response? Probably not.)

The solution, of course, lies in recorded media. CDs, audio files, podcasts, tapes, records, 8-track. Whatever you're comfortable with.

A quick Google led me to these useful sites:

Cloudy Day Art - a roughly monthly, roughly half-hour podcast that includes several different poets reading their own work each episode.

Griffin Poetry Prize - a page of author readings in various video and audio formats. The poets are chosen from this Canadian prize's shortlists and winners.

Houghton Mifflin's Poetic Voice - a different poet from the Houghton Mifflin stable is featured in each episode which includes discussions as well as readings.

Poets.org has a long list of audio files that are stupidly embedded and can not be extracted from the webpage. But it's still a good collection and includes Dylan Thomas reading Do not go gentle into that good night — he never sounded like that in my head.


There are several tapes my daughter and I listen to while eating dinner — Sir John Mills and Hayley Mills reading A. A. Milne's When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six* and Spike Milligan reading from A Children's Treasury of Milligan. (It's the new edition that comes with the CD.) When they wear out (which won't take long at this rate) I think we'll move onto some Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman. Dinner-time listening shouldn't be too heavy. It might affect the digestion.

*No longer available, but I did find a used copy for 35 GBP!

What is poetry?

According to the Macquarie Dictionary poetry is

the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.

Which is nothing if not flowery.

Wikipedia says poetry

is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning.

Which is nothing if not cold.

Your answer will lie, I think somewhere between these two definitions. Like any other art, any attempt to describe poetry is in the mind of the beholder. In other words, don't ask a poet to define her work.

Just as painting is more than pigment on canvas, poetry is more than words on paper. Certainly there are formal rules of poetry if you're reading sonnets or haiku, jintishi or villanelle. But there are equal numbers of poems without apparent form, or forms invented purely for that occasion.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Have you ever heard a kid learning to talk? Nonsense words, spoonerisms, madcap sentences, and attempts to recite the alphabet backwards? Any experimentation with language for the sheer joy of it; playing with sounds as well as meanings.

For me, that is poetry.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
said, "Oh, not scrambled eggs for dinner again!"

Why read poetry?

So why read poetry at all?

In addition to the myriad reasons for reading anything for pleasure, poetry has one obvious trait in it's favour. It's short.*

You can get the same emotional punch — a sudden recognition of yourself or the world, a loud laugh, an insight into the human condition — in a fraction of the time it takes to trek across Middle-earth or discover Darcy's a pretty nice guy after all. If you don't like the poem, you've hardly wasted any time. If you did like it, you can read it again straight away. Poetry is good for your emotional health.

Poetry slows you down. I've never heard of anyone advocating the speed reading of poetry, although that technique can work well for non-fiction and even some fiction. You have to sit still and breathe (cup of tea optional) or you'll miss it. Poetry is good for your physical health.

Because of the positioning of the words on the page, less common words and creative grammar, you are forced to pay attention to their meaning. You might come across terminology, ideas and eventually you'll start to notice new beats and rhythms you haven't come across before. Poetry is good for your mental health.

See, it's a cure-all; you'll be more relaxed, centered and intelligent if you read poetry. How can you afford not to?


*I reserve the right to make gross assumptions. Most poems are shorter than most novels. Unless you decide to start with something epic.