Neo-Victorian Poetry
  • Steampunk Poems
  • Romantic Poems
  • Christian Poems
  • Other Poems
  • Blog
  • Home

A little peak into the sense of words ...

8/27/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
"To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears."  So said Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat, poet, and writer, and he has made a brilliant point here; words have diverse affects. 

I recently read that roughly 4% of people live with something called Synesthesia, which involves a cross-wiring between one's primary senses.  Such individuals can sometime taste words or see sounds.

These synesthetic responses to stimuli are involuntary and very distinct.  I don't have Synesthesia, but when I read a story by Edgar Allen Poe, my senses become fully engaged and interconnected.

This is especially true of his poetry, and I was fortunate to have read him so early in my writing career.  Poe's expert writing style became a prime template for me to learn, and initially hone, my own craft.

In 1846, Poe wrote an essay titled The Philosophy of Composition, in which he detailed his approach to writing.  It lays out some rather stringent, and heady, guidelines which I only lightly ascribe to.

But the point here is, Poe's works give off some amazing visuals, sounds, and feelings that lure me into his story or poem so as to  hire me as an accomplice, so that they do not make for passive reading.  

This is what I try to achieve in my poems; to involve the reader intimately within the sphere of the verses, to the point of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting all that lies there in the poem. 

This is one reason why I rarely do poetry readings.  I prefer that the voices within my poems lead you through the work by hijacking all of your senses with the help of your own boundless imagination.    

This, I learned from Poe, from Edna St Vincent Millay, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and from a great many other highly skilled rhyming poets who wrote so long ago, and who knew the sense of their words.





Image: http://sensingarchitecture.com/11247/architecture-beyond-visual-sense





1 Comment
Handyman Marietta link
8/7/2022 07:34:42 am

Very nice blog yoou have here

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    About the author:

    I've written many poems over the years.  This blog is a preview of my books: Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry (April 2013), Echoes ll, More Neo-Victorian Poetry (May 2014), Echoes lll, Even More Neo-Victorian Poetry, (August 2016), A Compilation of Echoes. (September 2016), and When None Command (April 13, 2019)

    Archives

    December 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly