On the importance of reading aloud
Robin Hood and the Monk, a medieval tale about the enigmatic do-gooder outlaw, opens like this:
In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song,
To se the dere draw to the dale,
And leve the hilles hee,
And shadow hem in the leves grene,
Under the grene wode tre. *
It may look like nonsense or gibberish (unless, like me, you happen to be able to read middle english because of a weird phase in grad school), but when read aloud this opening comes to life. Whether the message is completely understood becomes secondary to the sense of the words as they leave the reader’s mouth, the feeling of the flow in the listener’s ear. Read aloud, this passage sounds almost like modern English, especially if you have a sense of its meaning: In summer, when the woods are bright and the leaves are large and long, it is full merry in the fair forest to hear the birdsong, to see the deer come to the valley and leave the high hills, and shadow themselves in green leaves under the greenwood trees. Now is that time, Somer, when the leaves shine and the forest sings.
And so I have come to sing back. The woods is where I go to practice reading aloud for open mics, reading events, and more. There’s one tree at a park that I won’t name for fear of it being discovered, and this tree really does sing. It has eaten another tree’s limbs with its growth, and so any force of wind makes the wood creak and squeak. I sing back, thank the tree for the leves, large and long. I read a poem I’m working on about summer, sleeping under a blanket of mayflies going after their last hurrah, and the tree squeaks back that it’s thirsty, that this summer is too dry. So I add water to my poem and hear the tree smack its lips. The leaves grow longer, and I think back to Robin Hood and this lovely singsongy middle english.
Literature started in song, in the mouths of writers whose paper was a campfire or a stage. Words are for communicating, speaking is one way of communicating. Singing is another. The importance of reading one’s work aloud is evident upon the first attempt: in a poem the word “dirt” might come out sounding like “girth” depending on the words around it, and that can be good or bad depending on the makeup of the universe at that moment. See, reading aloud is calling to the spirits of writing past in my mind. It is asking the air for feedback. It is an act of worship and vulnerability. Not every poem is meant to be read aloud by the reader, but every poem SHOULD be read aloud by the poet. So come, drawe to the dale, syng your song of the foulys to the air. You’ll find yourself to be an excellent audience.