Why Poetry Must Be Read Aloud

Why Poetry Must be Read Aloud The poet caresses the purity of the blank white page, seduces it, whispers to it, teases and cajoles, coaxing from the emptiness a depth of solace, the fullness of a lover’s smile. His words are mined, milled, and shaped by the hammer and anvil of his heart. Heated to molten glow by his passion and his longing to be enveloped, entrapped, ensnared in the web of whiteness. Thus, he pours out his metaphoric blood, his soul, in words. Words – words that mar the clarity of the page, despoil its clinical perfection. Words torn from love, or pain, or loneliness, unspoken words yet to feel the breath of freedom. So is the secret shared without fervor, without rage, in lust-less, loveless, agony. Etched onto the silence of the paper, hidden in the margins of the white bordered prison. Waiting – to be given a voice, to be imbued with the passion found in the speaker, to echo across a valley, to be shouted, sung, screamed into the cooling air of life. It is not enough to be written, to fill the emptiness of the page, for paper has no passion. John G. Lawless 4/9/2014