Is "Poet Voice" a Real Thing?

 

Have you been to a poetry reading where some of the poets read in the same way? The stretched pauses. The careful pacing. The slightly mystical cadence. The voice that quietly announces, “This is a poem.”

If you have, you'll know that the prior sentence, in “poetry voice,” would probably sound like this:

The voice 
that quietly 
announces, 
“This
is
a poem.”

And it would be read with rising inflection at the end of every line, like everything was a question, or a revelation, or both.

A recent New York Times piece looks at this, often called the “poet voice,” and asks why so many poets end up reading their work in nearly identical ways. 

Poetry lives in two spaces at once. On the page, it’s quiet, interior, personal. Out loud, it becomes physical and shared. Breath matters. Silence matters. Tone matters. Pace matters. The same poem can feel like a different piece of writing depending on how it’s voiced.

But sometimes readings by different poets of different poems end up sounding the same.

Which raises the question: why? I don't think it happens with fiction.

Poetry comes from oral tradition. Long before books, poems lived in memory, voice, and storytelling. Sound came first. But modern literary culture often splits poetry into categories. Page poetry versus performance poetry. MFA poetry versus spoken word. Reading poetry versus performing poetry. Even though they are all doing the same fundamental thing, using voice to create meaning.

I remember the first time I saw poets read aloud in a bar in Philadelphia in the 1990s, and being struck by how similar the readings sounded. I was really surprised by the sing-song voice. When I was in my MFA program, student readings often felt the same way. Many students and faculty read in that same cadence, that same tone. Most students and teachers were very serious about poetry, "the craft," and very intentional about performance. I never quite managed to take it that seriously, which is probably a personal flaw.

On Threads people are losing their minds over the article(slow news day?), so I invite you to talk about it:

• When you hear poetry read aloud, does it pull you closer to the work or push you away?
• Is “poet voice” actually a thing, or just a habit we’ve absorbed without noticing?
• How do you read your own work aloud, conversational, dramatic, flat, musical, casual?
• If you read your own work aloud, and you write poetry and fiction, or memoir, or all three, do you read them differently?
• Should readings feel like performance, conversation, ritual, or something else?
• Does hearing the poet’s voice add to the experience or not?

Could you....
drop your thoughts....
in the comments?