Louise reads poems

I was looking out at an overcast, rainy day and found As KIngfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The colours alone transported me out of the greyness in the room and I had to read it. More, the sounds of the words are almost three dimensional. The unpredictable combination of repeated sounds and rhyming sounds makes me feel as if I'm in the flow of a playful sea current as I read or listen.

Read it here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44389/as-kingfishers-catch-fire

Photo by Boris  Smokrovic on Unsplash.

I bought Raymond Carver's All of Us on the strength of one poem and haven't properly explored it yet. I picked it up and chose Soda Crackers - it tugged at me. 

When I head myself reading it as a monologue and not a poem, new meaning fizzed from the words. The timbre of my voice changed as I read the last line and that's helped me to hear the whole poem differently.

I love repetition in poems and you'll hear it almost immediately in this one by Carole Satyamurti.

I found a copy of Short of Breath, a poetry collection by Vivien Jones, in a second hand bookshop and passed over Cold Snap at first. 

It wasn't until I read it aloud that I realised its sounds and rhythms manage to re-create the sharpness in the air of a deep-winter day. 

I love the alliteration and the percussion in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - it just cries out to be read aloud. 

Listen for repeated sounds not just at the beginning of the words, but on the first stressed syllable. Feel the pulse and the pattern of the poem and you'll remember it physically as well as aurally. 

Most importantly, enjoy it!

My friend Ash sent me a poem about biscuits and, it being Friday afternoon and being in need of a diversion, I recorded it. 

Enjoy! And maybe go make a cup of tea and find a packet of biscuits ...