"The Song of the Wandering Aengus" by W.B. Yeats (poetry reading)

Less frequently called "The Song of Wandering Aengus", omitting "the" which seems to be wrong but I don't see that it matters much.

This was one the the first poems I uploaded and I was then still fooling around trying to find a good sound format and getting it wrong, indistinct and muffled. So here it is again. I hope it's better.

This is an ideal poem if you want to practice reading poetry. It's deceptively simple and shows flaws well.
You can hear other people, who habitually read poetry, recite it here:
http://librivox.org/the-song-of-wandering-aengus-by-william-butler-yeats/

Poetry is more like music than speech. Some people are poem-deaf, which is like tone-deaf, they don't know how it should sound. They don't have the internal voice which recites poetry to them. If they read a poem aloud they ignore metre and rhyme and emphasise the wrong words, as if reading assembly instructions to dimwits.

Worse still, they're convinced they're reading well. They're like the oddballs they put through on America's Got Talent for a laugh who are so astonished and angry when they get rejected.

Read with stresses according to the metre - which is like saying, "sing the tune" but it's surprising how many don't. Is it iambic? trochaic? where do the stresses fall? Don't let the rhymes take you by surprise. It's a mistake to sacrifice the metre of the line in order to make the point: if it were a song you wouldn't stop singing to shout the punchline, would you?

Don't leave unnecessary gaps. If you do it will sound like an itinerary or a recipe: first I did this, (pause) then I did that. (pause) A poem runs one cadence into the next, like a song.

Some people - well, mostly Americans - think poetry should be read with more emphasis. Americans like emphasis: on Fox News in particular the presenters have pressured speech, emphasising nearly every word: "WHAT I SAY IS IMPORTANT SO LISTEN TO ME". It doesn't scan.

Emphasis is a trap. Emphasis on a word changes the meaning and the metre of the line. Don't emphasise a word unless there's a compelling reason. If you introduce your secretary by saying, "This is Mavis, my SECRETARY" with implied inverted commas: well, maybe she is more than just your "secretary", nudge, nudge, wink, wink, but don't embarrass the poor girl.

If you say, "and kiss her LIPS" then it sounds like you considered other possible targets for kissing. If you say, "she called me by my NAME" then you sound relieved she didn't call you "Shaggy" like the guys on the corner.

Emphasis is usually unnecessary. If you say, "wagging their TAILS behind them" - the listener wonders - what else would they wag? or, just as bad, "wagging their tails BEHIND them" - well, where else would they wag them?

Yeats' portrait was by Augustus John in 1907. I have a good story about a friend of mine and Augustus John that I might tell you when I have a little more time.

"Miranda" was painted by Sir Frank Dicksee in about 1875. She has nothing to do with the poem apart from the fact she's a pretty, fey-looking girl who would be worth finding.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Song
• of
• the
• Wandering
• Aengus3

[SailorAlex3]

I didn't notice any mention of stressing verbs or reading to the end of the sentence, not the end of the line. (This isn't disregarding the advice on stress you gave.) But this is what I've been taught by actors and professional poets, and I've found they improve the sound immensely. What's your take on these rules?

[GAIASDREAMER]

This is beautiful. The painting is beautiful too. Thank you.

[lafillenoir]

I'm bewitched, you read the verse so well. I can't quite place of what actor your voice reminds me of.

[TheApollopotter]

this is the one

[daddio7777777]

Thank you so much for reading this poem with feeling and simplicity.

I have never heard it spoken so well. There is such music in this shimmering verse that it reaches deep inside one's soul. I am not impartial. I hold Yeats to be the greatest poet of the English language. I am not Irish but when the Irish speak English they seem to taste it, i think because English to them is a spoken medium. They also love speaking.

[C6H12B26]

Great ! Judy Collins sung version is beautiful, too. But she changed one word :

" and kiss her lips..." becomes "and see her lips ..." as she is not a man ...

Great thanks !

[menkbabe1]

My good friend and Vicar, Father Jack Schanhaar, did like Auden so much that towards the end of his life, when his mind was fading and he was tiring of life, the single book he kept and read from time to time was a book on Auden's life.

As for me, hearing wandering makes me remember well Father Jack. At least as he was towards the end. I think he would like this Yeats poem, as do I. I am sorry I can't tell him about it.

Peter Menkin

Mill Valley, CA USA

(north of San Francisco)

[solarisqs]

Thanks for the tips on how to read poetry too - I like your points about emphasis.