Sonnet #43, before coffee
This morning I watched video readings of Poe’s The Raven.
Great actors like James Earl Jones and Christopher Walken
read the poem’s lines with music in the background,
almost as if it were a film script with a musical score.
I fear they missed the point, rushing through the words
to make them fit an external melody and rhythm.
With Poe, the music is inside the words and lines, not outside.
Poe’s words should be read slowly, deliberately, intentionally.
One word should stumble into another, like a drunk man walking,
like a drugged Poe, bobbing and weaving and writing his poetry.
My father, self-medicated as he often was, would read The Raven
as it should be read, slowly, with slurs, and sharps, and flats.
“Don’t f--- with Poe! Forgive me son, I didn’t mean to say that word.
But Poe is not a joke.” I learned that lesson well.
This morning I watched video readings of Poe’s The Raven.
Great actors like James Earl Jones and Christopher Walken
read the poem’s lines with music in the background,
almost as if it were a film script with a musical score.
I fear they missed the point, rushing through the words
to make them fit an external melody and rhythm.
With Poe, the music is inside the words and lines, not outside.
Poe’s words should be read slowly, deliberately, intentionally.
One word should stumble into another, like a drunk man walking,
like a drugged Poe, bobbing and weaving and writing his poetry.
My father, self-medicated as he often was, would read The Raven
as it should be read, slowly, with slurs, and sharps, and flats.
“Don’t f--- with Poe! Forgive me son, I didn’t mean to say that word.
But Poe is not a joke.” I learned that lesson well.
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