How to Listen to Poetry

If you have difficulty listening to poetry, contemplate Philip Wagner's advice.

You may enjoy poetry by listening for its wit, its insight, and its music.

Listen to poetry by attending poetry readings in your local bookstores or colleges.

Here are two other marvelous ways to hear poetry:

Historic poets in the English language. Compact Disc of The Classic Hundred Poems, Edited by William Harmon. This collection of the best poems in the English Language is read by contemporary poets, including Rita Dove, Anthony Hecht, and Philip Levine. These classic poems include work by Sir Thomas Wyatt, Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, John Milton, through Emily Dickinson to Dylan Thomas.
The poems are "Determined by the consensus of over 1,000 compilers, and arranged in chronological order." Each poet and each poem is preceded by pithy comments. The poets who read the poems have diverse reading styles, which adds interest to the program.
By the way, you may come across negative reviewers. Ignore them. On the whole, such folk seem unaware that "classic" works are different from "modern works" and that (just as Joan Baez has given us her marvelous song of Poe's poem Annabel Lee) a woman may be the reader for a poem written by a man.
Living Poets. VHS Video Tape of Sounds of Poetry, Starring: Bill Moyers (Emmy award winning journalist). Since 1986, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (or Carnival) has presented over 300 established and emerging poets, and attracted more than 50,000 avid listeners. A nine-part series. The videos celebrate the power of language and the importance of this spoken art form. ings of their own works, make each program an incomparable exploration of contemporary poetry.

Stuff You Can Do At A Boring Poetry Reading
by Philip Wagner

1. Write the names of the people you love
on the roof of your mouth
with your tongue.

2. Hum lyrics -
ones you'll write in green ink
on your lover's silk underwear.

3. Imagine ... walking around the building
Sing out the names of everything you see
and chant the words, I-love-you.

Take for example this: Wet and Fallen Pine Cone
I-love-you

    All the spent and dented ...
    all the forgotten ...
    all empty beer cans ...
    everything in the gutter,
        I-love-you.
    and O parking meters
    lonely with no time left for anyone
        I-love-you.

4. Listen carefully to the poet
Invent a little prayer for his easy death.
Recite the mantra: deDUM deDUM, heDUM heDUM

5. See what happens
when you add the words chicken guts at the end of each stanza.

6. Aurally rewrite a line in Pig Latin
Rally-o-ray write-o-ray a-ray ine-lay in-ray Ig-pay Atin-lay

7. Move to the front row
    Look into the poet's eyes
    Stare into his corneas
    Go there, &
    with your feet on one side and your two hands on the other
    open his irises real wide
    so the poet can see
    what it is
    he's talking about.

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