I’m becoming a real fan of poetry read aloud. I love to hear words animated. Silence falls, and the voice, with its hypnotic or musical or walking tones, steps in. Now that I’ve had the chance to read several times from “Diaspora of Things,” I’m fascinated. Self-conscious at the start, I was careful to put emphasis here, pause between stanzas where I penciled in “pause.” Then I slid into a rhythm. The words took over, released from the page. I hoped those words, riding on the point of a vibrating arrow, attached to wings, knew how to do what they do.
Homer called it, “winged words,” how poetry is in flight and comes alive, like airborne birds, like carrier pigeons, conveying meaning and power. In Hebrew, words and things are conveyed by the same word – devar. In “Diaspora,” things become released “from the gaze of possession” – so why not words? If they pierce the reader, go directly from one inner self to another, I ask for nothing more.
Thank you to Kimberly at Symposium Books, and moderator Christina Bevilaqua.