Audio vignette of memorable character: Richard-the-Librarian.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Breathing Life Into a Poem
I was a long time coming to the realization that poetry was meant to be read aloud. Maybe you already knew that, but I was a slow learner.
There really is a difference.
This short video nicely emphasizes the added impact of vocalizing a poem. It presents different reader voices side-by-side and we can judge for ourselves.
[NOTE: I posted this poem by itself many years ago but feel the added context is worth considering.]
The poem itself – “When You Are Old” by W.B. Yeats – is so splendid that I myself made a video of me reading it several years ago. But I have been wary of it ever since because my reading voice is so terrible compared to professionals.
I did, however, rather like the supporting visuals I added to the spoken poem, and have included them again in this version. You can judge if the visualizations add another dimension to your experience of the poem.
In the poem itself, Yeats asks a woman to imagine a future when she is old, reminding her that others loved her for her physical beauty while he loved her “pilgrim soul” and the “sorrows of [her[ changing face.”
The suggestion is that she may one day look back and regret missing out on his deeper, more spiritual love.
Enjoy, if poetry interests you.
“When you read aloud a poem by a great master like Yeats, your own voice, your breath, your body becomes the medium for that master.”
– Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States
(IV) Woman Lit By Fireflies
4th & final installment of Barbara Sparhawk’s documentary, featuring a retrospective (in her own words) of paintings (flowers, landscapes, portraits) and writings (novels, short stories, children’s books).
“When I launch each day I am almost in a fainting delirium.”
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THE COMPLETE SERIES, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
(I) Woman In The Morgue
Joyful, creative woman dies alone, body unclaimed for weeks, a toe tag her only companion.
“Look how fast we all vanish, even the most flamboyant, important, precious to any life, gone so fast.”
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(II) Woman For All Seasons
Before she was a toe tag, Barbara was evangelical about living a vibrant, multi-faceted bohemian life.
“As far as I could see a checkered career was about the best thing on earth. I could live my life as I saw fit, and the more checkers the better!”
🙂 🙂 🙂
(III) Woman Resurrected
Fighting through despair after death and loss, Barbara – while renting a cottage from Al Jardine of The Beach Boys – struggles to craft a new normal and rekindle her creative fervor.
“Artists have it in them to absorb and feel the depth of despair, and also to walk, with the viewer’s hand in ours, to imagined wonders that resonate with hope.”
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giblets & flapdoodle 