Young Writers Society

Once in a conversation with Navita, I said that I often read poetry almost as music in ink. By that, I mean that the flow of words and the strain of phrases and line breaks have a tendency to meld together into a sort of transcendent sensation that is more or less a fusion of the senses. It's a musicality in the words and tones.

When you read poetry, can you hear sounds beyond the words? Do you believe that poetic elements can pique tonal sensations? Or do you read poetry for its face-value: words on a page?

If you don't, I encourage you to try. For me, it enhances the experience of reading and writing.

And it goes beyond music--it can be colors or feelings or anything as powerful as chills. What does poetry do for you?

For me, it’s about hearing it as I read it. One of the few compliments I’ve ever gotten when I speak is that, at least according to my old English teacher, I have a good voice for reciting things. It’s just a shame I have super stage fright.

But for me, I have to hear a poem. I can’t just see it as words on a page. Good poetry is best heard, not read – at least in my opinion. Of course, as a poetry reader and reviewer, I actually didn’t really start doing this until after I read Evi’s poem Equipped with Melodies. Ever since I actually sat down and read it, listening to myself reading it, it became a habit of mine to read a poem out loud. It, for me, really reveals a very different, much more powerful sensation.

Everyone who's had the misfortune of conversing poetry with me knows I put a ridiculous amount of emphasis on word flow and rhythm--quite like music, yes. The way I think of it as I write it is more like building, say, a model plane: every word is a part, and it must fit as perfectly as is possible with the whole. You can't take something from a different model and just tack it on, you can't put the wrong word in the wrong place. Sounds and syllables should work like that. If a first line doesn't sound right, odds are I won't keep reading.

That also applies for prose.

That said, I also tend to envision writing styles as art. They somehow get associated with specific art forms--some people write like watercolors, some like oil paint. Some people read like photographs.

Jagged: I'm the same as you! A poem for me has to be well structured, but still flow (a problem I have with my own poems because I don't like compromising one for the other) However, when these are observed, the poem, for me, really sings, if you know what I mean.