Prose tends to flow freely like a brook, bunching up a bit before a rock, churning a bit in a whirlpool, or slowly circling in a backwater. But the meaning is usually clear.
A poem, on the other hand, can be more like a plank of knotty pine. It may run straightforward and freely for a while in a clear grain – and then bunch suddenly in a knot of quite complex thought or be lost suddenly, and for a while, in a vacant hole of revelation. For this reason, I’ve sometimes used the first or second take of a recording, rather than a more practiced later version. Like a buzzsaw, in the initial take you can feel the mind labor as the voice gears down to cut through a hardened knot of particularly opaque meaning, or fly freely as the minds sawblade spins wildly through a vacant hole of illumination. I enjoy hearing this dialogue between the poem and reader.
Photo by Carl Nelson / Poem by Carl Nelson / Voice by John Ruoff
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