"The Good Morrow" by John Donne (poetry reading)

I was given a book for Christmas: "Postmodern American Poetry" - a Norton Anthology. In fact, I had asked for it because my daughters say they never know what to get for me. I was hoping to find something I could read aloud. So far I haven't found a single poem - but I drew some tentative conclusions.

All poetry, before the 20th century and the postmodern era, depended on sound. Rhyme, metre, alliteration, onomatopoeia and all those other things that Ezra Pound collectively called "melopoeia" were essential. Poetry had to be audible. Even the classic haiku was 17 syllables, supposed to be all that could be said in one breath, defining a single thought or image. Poetry used to be an audible artform. This also made it the only truly portable artform: you can own the original Ode to a Nightingale - if you are willing to commit it to memory.

Postmodern poetry is more a visual artform. What matters in this postmodern period is how the words look on the printed page. That now seems to matter more than how they sound when read aloud. E E Cummings was an innovator of this trend, though he didn't entirely abandon melopoeia for typography. Many of his poems can be read aloud - but some are distinctly typographical art.

Poetry - or any artform - is like a science, in that it depends on what went before. Once every nuance has been wrung from a technique then it's necessary to find a way out of its confines - to throw off the chains. The hallmark of true genius is technical innovation.

The rules are now so relaxed that the postmodern poet has no craft to learn. It has been observed that "any fool can write vers libre" and chop it into lines so that it resembles poetry on the printed page. But, because there is no melopoeia, there is little point in reading it aloud.

There may be a clue in what George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." The dominant voice of America is the voice of the salesman or the evangelist. The everyday speech of Americans is more pitched, more assetive, more emphatic. Americans are taught to read poetry with emphasis, to drive home the "message". One problem is that you can't have both emphasis and metre: stress defeats metre.

Shakespeare's sonnets aren't what Shakespeare intended if they are read with no regard for the tune, like this:

"SHALL I compare THEE to a SUMMER'S DAY?
THOU art MORE lovely and MORE temperate..."

It's meditation on a theme, not a sales pitch, not this week's unmissable special offer. Yet this manner of reading seems to be what is approved by American educationalists. Perhaps that is why melopoeia is non-existent in most Postmodern American poetry.

This poem by John Donne is the voice of a sophisticated, intelligent man talking to his mistress. They have just awakened in the morning in their little room. Her head is on the pillow next to his, and so close that he can see his face reflected in her eyes.

Here's David Mason reading it for Poetry Out Loud. David Mason has criticised the way I read, so I chose his reading to represent the American style - and I accept that most Americans prefer poetry read this way. They want emphasis: to them it seems like I'm not trying hard enough.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/audio/07%20Track%2007.mp3

"Lovers" is Valencia Street Art executed in coloured chalks.
The last picture is a Tarot Card - the Lovers.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Good
• Morrow
• John
• Donne

[DatenshiChan01]

I would love to hear you do the following poems (much apologies if I mention one you have already read)

Daddy - Sylvia Plath

Edge - Sylvia Plath

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning - John Donne

Requiescat - Oscar Wilde

Alone - Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe

I adore your readings. The voice just rolls over me and makes every single poem even more beautiful. :) I look forward to each and every one of your readings.

[SpokenVerse]

@DatenshiChan01 If you go to my homepage you can find readings using the search box over the videos.

Sylvia Plath - can't attempt most because they're too first-person. I did Alicante Lullaby

Valediction - John Donne - I think so

Oscar Wilde - some, but not Requiescat

Alone - Edgar Allan Poe - yes.

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe - yes

All the best, Tom



[elstroshitnonstop]

Masons reading is so poor in comparison, its a joke. your voice comes in waves of husky, mellow, rising and lowering tones. Your interweaving is a fine art

[SpokenVerse]

@elstroshitnonstop I swear I didn't post this remark and no money changed hands.

[dracentsparkle]

thanks for sharing

[SharpenedToungue]

@SweeneyAgonistes what a wide generalization

[SweeneyAgonistes]

Americans are philistines and know little about literary art. There's a reason most of the best American writers (James, Wharton, Pound, Eliot) emigrated to Europe.

[belisariusorb]

I listened to the poem before, then I came back for a repeat and discovered the intriguing essay in the video description.

The first part of the analysis I couldn't agree more with. The only good contemporary verse is that which respects metre and melopoeia (new word for me) whether in traditional form or free form.

The second part I regard as an overgeneralisation. My family is Irish and my old uncle used to belt out Yeats verses like it was derby day. He hated my readings.

Some like it hot.

[DouglasHall1947]

Great to see you back!!!!

[brightonbreezy]

That style of reading is not purely American, I've heard just as many like that here in the UK. When read by an actor, they often think the words on the page need to be brought to life, often flattening the music and mystery. Then there are those by poets who hear each word really acutely and how they all make music with each other. These readings are often over mannered and just too opaque. Neither extreme works, but I like your style, it sits somewhere in the middle. Thank you.

[mozu517]

@DatenshiChan01 YES--Sylvia Plath! And Ted Hughes.

[mnolanporter]

Interesting how Mason introduces his version of the poem by saying, "I used to annoy girlfriends by reciting it them...."