Reading (or not reading) poetry

[JLT]

It's often been noted that a lot of poetry can't be appreciated simply by reading it silently. It must be heard as it is spoken, like so much of Shakespeare's dialog. Only that way do you get the music of the cadence. (It's also been noted that when you're writing poetry, take the time to read it out loud and see if that cadence comes through.) Often, when I find myself unimpressed by a poem, I read it out loud to see whether there's anything I've missed and find myself surprised.

One is Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus," which came to mind when I was watching Ken Burns's documentary on the Statue of Liberty. The poem stands well on its own, of course, But when I hear it being read in the voice of a woman, it nearly always brings me to tears.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

But I would go further and say that some poems must be sung in order to display their true value. One that come to mind is W. B. Yeats's "Song of the Wandering Aengus." (The clue is the word "song' right there in the title.) There are quite a few versions of it available on YouTube, in widely different styles by Judy Colllins and Donovan, who used a tune by Christy Moore, and Dave Van Ronk, who used another tune whose origin I don't know.

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

It's in my repertoire, too, where I sing it in the quiet voice of an old man, accompanying myself on the Irish harp. The effect can be spellbinding. Often, when I finished, the room is silent, as if the audience was so rapt that nobody wanted to break the enchantment by being the first one to clap. That's real magic.

Another one is Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee." Here, we are lucky enough to have an arrangement, by Don Dilworth, who saw the poem for what it was: a song in the tradition of a medieval troubadour and the concept of "courtly love" taken to its extreme. I found it in a Joan Baez songbook and added it to my repertoire, shaping it even more into a medieval ballad. Here's Ms. Baez's version: