The Look or The Sound?

[Earl]

I have a question for which I would truly appreciate everyone’s (or anyone’s) opinions.

What do you consider more important in writing poetry, the look of the words on the page or the sound of the words when spoken?

I've been having some trouble deciding where best to break lines. I work as a graphic artist and can appreciate the way words and type play across a page, but I also come from a theater background and the spoken word is very important to me.

I tend to make my line breaks where a natural or dramatic pause would occur when the poem is read aloud, but I've had critiques where my line breaks were adjusted to give "punch" or "weight" to certain words.

When you write, do you look at the flow of words and letters as a visual art? Do you listen to words only as an inner voice speaking in your head? Or do you read the poem aloud with your audience as more listener than reader?

Perhaps what I'm trying to ask is do you write poetry to be read or heard and should that affect the writing?

Earl

[garyg]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Earl:
I have a question for which I would truly appreciate everyone’s (or anyone’s) opinions.

What do you consider more important in writing poetry, the look of the words on the page or the sound of the words when spoken?

**The sound.

I've been having some trouble deciding where best to break lines. I work as a graphic artist and can appreciate the way words and type play across a page, but I also come from a theater background and the spoken word is very important to me.

I tend to make my line breaks where a natural or dramatic pause would occur when the poem is read aloud, but I've had critiques where my line breaks were adjusted to give "punch" or "weight" to certain words.

When you write, do you look at the flow of words and letters as a visual art? Do you listen to words only as an inner voice speaking in your head? Or do you read the poem aloud with your audience as more listener than reader?

Perhaps what I'm trying to ask is do you write poetry to be read or heard and should that affect the writing?

Earl

**Both visual and aural elements are important, and should be considered while writing. However, my personal taste runs to the sonic end of the spectrum. I'm funny that way.

garyg
blame Dylan Thomas

[Urizen]

What a great question. I think it would be an interesting experiment for someone (a mod perhaps) to post a poem of their own without line breaks, and then see if anyone could come close to the actual linebreaks in their replies. I would say there would be a surprisingly wide variety of interpretations, and no two would be the same. Of course, this would only work with free verse.

I personally think the look of a poem is important. I prefer some kind of formal appearance or symmetry even in free verse, and I think John Hollander said something like, most poetry, even what is called "free verse" is not entirely devoid of some kind of formal structure.

Bottomline, though, garyg is right. Sound is most important. Poetry should attempt to be enlightening, engaging, challenging, of course, but if it sounds bad it's useless. And the most clever shape or the most contrived format in the world will not make a bad poem more appealing.

IMO

[This message has been edited by Urizen (edited 11-03-2001).]

[David Mascellani]

Interesting topic Earl (Welcome to the PFFA)

I am not expert on scansion but I do know that it is one of determining factors (perhaps, THE determining one) of how a poem should sound when it is read aloud. I also know that even the experts can disagree (sometimes quite heatedly) about how a certain line or lines of a poem should be scanned and, consequently, how it should be read out loud.

I think that most people imagine what a poet's speaking voice would sound like- and, in turn, be quite surprised when they actually get to hear the poet. I mean, I would NEVER have imagined that Charles Bukowski had such a squeaky, lispy, effeminate voice. And when I heard Dylan Thomas read "Do Not Go Gentle"
I thought that he did a very beautiful and wonderful job of it, but he sounded like he was about 89 years old- and he was only,what,
39 when he died. Whereas, Sylvia Plath's voice was pretty much as imagined it to be, poshy and plumb-in-mouthy- and disdainful.

Although, I have not done it in a long time (I'm a sad and lonely guy) I have always found it enlightening to hear one of my poems read out by another person, so that I can hear how it sounds to other people, and to learn what meanings and inferences they are getting from the poem based on their interpretations of how the poem sounds.

I also think that sound is important in all types of writing which is why I am interested in poetry- because I think that while being told your poetry is 'prosey' is an insult, I think to be told that your prose is 'poetic' is praise. It was, I think, Julie Carter who brought to my attention that one of the most beautiful pieces of 'poetry' comes from James Joyce's short story 'The Dead' (Ok, I may have raved on, and go on off the topic a bit, but this piece
sounds good to my ear when I read out loud, and it probably sounds even better when read with an Irish accent. Here it is:


A few taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes,silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain,on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barrenthorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Here are some links that I hope you find interesting and informative:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/soundinpoetry/
http://www.alsopreview.com/pllines.html
http://www.poets.org/booth/booth.cfm
http://www.muohio.edu/~finchar/criticism/holder.html
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ru/jakobson.htm
http://www.uoguelph.ca/englit/victorian/HTML/study_po.html



[This message has been edited by David Mascellani (edited 11-03-2001).]

[Scavella]

Earl, I'm with gary & others. For me, it's the sound. Too much playing around with the look gets gimmicky.

[Clive2]

The sound, always the sound. I hate poetry that's too aware of the way it looks on the page - calligrammes; "concrete" poetry blech!

[Andrea345]

If the piece doesn't sound good, it doesn't matter if you hand letter the thing in a wispy spiral on a maroon background, the piece is garbage. As well, you can glom a load of "beautiful" sounds together and come up with tripe as well. It's sound as well as sense. After that, you can arrange it on the page.

As far as line breaks go, I know I have a penchant for lines which end on a stressed word. There's a couple of good threads here about line breaks and enjambment. Check these out.
http://www.everypoet.com/poetry/poetry_forums/Forum10/HTML/001063.html
http://www.everypoet.com/poetry/poetry_forums/Forum11/HTML/000220.html



[This message has been edited by Andrea345 (edited 11-03-2001).]

[FireFlower]

Reading poetry aloud is so much fun, my sister and I used to pick poems to read aloud as children. We would go back and forth reading our favorites. For me the sound is more important then the look of the poem.

Liz
my 2 cents http://www.everypoet.com/poetry/poetry_forums/smile.gif

I would suggest trying out posting some of your more daring pieces focusing on the look of a poem in experimental.

[Julie]

Originally posted by Earl:
I have a question for which I would truly appreciate everyone’s (or anyone’s) opinions.

What do you consider more important in writing poetry, the look of the words on the page or the sound of the words when spoken?

Both.

Linebreaks are more visual than aural. Most poems could be written as a block and then read aloud without losing a great deal for the audience.

But on the page, the poet has the ability to divide the words and phrases and sentences into logical (or illogical) groupings that emphasize, distort, hide, reveal, distract, confuse, inform, or puzzle the reader.

We can get more from a poem by both reading it on the page and reading it aloud. We should consider both.

Julie

[Earl]

Sincere thanks to everyone for taking the time to post your thoughts. Special thanks to David and Andrea for posting links to more information on this subject.

Again, thank you all,

Earl