Aloud

Early yesterday, my friend Jared linked to me a youtube video of a spoken word poem called "To This Day" by Shane Koyczan, animated as a project by a bunch of artists. It really moved me, mostly because of how much I related to it. And it got me thinking about how I haven't really done much spoken word stuff, not with my poetry or my writing. I don't know why I haven't, other than I hadn't thought about it. It's not like there are open mic nights and stuff  for poetry around where I live, or if there are, I haven't heard of them. But I liked being able to hear a poem as read by the author. I like the layer it adds, the inflection and sound affecting the way the poem is received, instead of the one layer of just reading it for yourself. I remember feeling this way the first time I heard Dylan Thomas reading his poetry, the way he emphasized certain parts above others, differently than the way I emphasized them in my head. I recall recording a couple of poems after hearing him back in 2006 or 2007. Never did anything with them because I hated the way they sounded, but I think it's important, in some respects, for an artist, especially one who creates things as a record of their own perceptions, to give as much personal paradigm to their work as possible. If you're expressing yourself, express yourself in ALL the ways, I guess.

Anyway, when I got home late late late last night, I started recording some of my poems. It surprised me, there are parts of them where reading them out loud really moved me, and I can hear my voice break, and recall that I started crying at one part where I had never cried before, in writing OR reading it. And just as different poems are written in different tones, they're read in different tones. Anyway, now I'm just trying to figure out how to link them here for you, just in case you're interested. Maybe SoundCloud will work. But yeah... experimenting... and these are totally unedited. so, soz for sound quality.

perpetuity


i have been you


ten nine


ten three