RSSThe spaces between words
Apr 22
Poetry, Reading declamation, guest blogger, Jenny O'Grady, national poetry month, the sounds words make No Comments
I’m happy to introduce today’s guest blogger, Jenny O’Grady. She’s a dear friend and mentor to me, and one of the first people I met when I moved to Baltimore (I actually met her at a poetry reading for the Little Patuxent Review). A former newspaper reporter, Jenny now serves as director of alumni and development communications at UMBC, as well as associate editor of UMBC Magazine. By night, she teaches book arts and electronic publishing classes in the University of Baltimore’s creative writing & publishing arts MFA program, from which she earned her degree in 2006. She also edits a web-based writing and arts journal called The Light Ekphrastic. You can see more of her work at www.kineticprose.com.
It is a true treat to hear a living writer speak his or her craft.
I have had the privilege of hearing many great poets read: Seamus Heaney revealing his early thoughts on where babies come from; my teacher, Kendra Kopelke, giving voice to the women in Edward Hopper’s paintings; Mark Doty speaking spunkily to the driver of a passing car. In every case, when I later read the words on the page, they leapt from the paper as if the poet was speaking directly to me.
This is no revelation; I’m sure it happens to many readers. What does surprise me, though, is the power of reading older poems aloud, of imagining an unheard voice and connecting to the words in a strangely personal way.
I love to read poems aloud. I love “Poem in Your Pocket” day. I love random surprise recitations of classics to unsuspecting co-workers. (I’m sure they love this, too. Or not.)
One of my favorites is “Oh Captain, My Captain,” by Walt Whitman. I memorized this poem for Mrs. Cutright’s seventh grade English class in the late ’80’s, and it’s been stuck fast to my synapses ever since. I can honestly say that at the time I had very little idea of the meaning of what I was memorizing, and I probably didn’t care. I recited the poem to my class, collected my “A,” and moved on to the next cool thing.
As time passed, though, and the poem stayed with me, it became something more. Each time I speak it, I feel a mix of pride and pleasure. The pride comes from having, in effect, a virtual poem in my pocket every hour of every day; from knowing that I am helping to spread the word (literally) about an important work of art; from being able to surprise people with such an unusual bit of knowledge, and to show proof of my devotion to poetry.
These points of pride bring pleasure all their own. But, more importantly, I draw immense happiness from the physical act of speaking this poem, of feeling the words click against my teeth, the spaces between words vary on a whim. I can’t know how Walt Whitman would have spoken this himself, but I like to imagine he would have especially enjoyed saying these lines out loud:
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack,
the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
I hope you’ll try reading this aloud right now, and maybe even look at the full poem here. There are so many lovely sounds to make, so many turns, so much drama and sadness all at once.
A teenager reads things differently than an adult. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I often focused on the “O heart! heart! heart!” line, thinking it very wild and dramatic. I would flail my arms and land on my knees, acting out the discovery of a corpse. My family found it amusing.
Today, I speak it and I know better what it means. I know the history of this poem, true, but I also have an adult perspective. I have lost people, I have lost faith, I have been disappointed. And when I read it, aloud or silently, I feel these things and love the poem all the more.