During the class discussion on Wednesday, January 5th, I was struck by the statement that (to paraphrase) what is written should also be read aloud, or why else do we write? I couldn’t have disagreed more, but I found it hard at the time to articulate exactly why.
There are some surface reasons, such as the distinct disappointment I feel whenever audio books fail to capture the mood of the original text, similar to the disappointment of seeing a Hollywood star’s face representing a character I’ve long cherished. It’s hard to erase what is seen and heard. Perhaps this is my failing. When asked to read aloud, I find myself reading the work as I would read it in my head, even as I critique myself for failing to perform it as others might expect. As a professional translator, I understand the frustration of not being able to address the source directly. Going through a third party's translation can cause more of a distracting effect than an enriching one. In that, I am too harsh a critic of everyone (including myself), unwilling to surrender my personal connection with the poem to another's expression. Great actors will almost always create a positive effect, but there, too, I distinguish between someone performing a role and someone (during a poetry recital, for instance) expressing the voice of a poem. If I categorize recitals as performances, I have no disconnect and can enjoy the words and the performance as two separate elements only briefly joined to present one flavor of the poem's expression. The disconnect was most severe during a few instances in high school when I was asked to edit my reading or to adopt another's performance in order to best deliver the poem. It was as if they were suggesting the poem's voice should be defined by performance, which felt contrary to poetic expression.
I write often, and have for as long as I can remember, beginning with cartoons as a child, and I’ve rarely shared my work due to shyness or to the work being incomplete. I have never felt any less satisfied for keeping a poem or some odd prose or ramble to myself than I have the few times I’ve shared my work with others. Nor have I ever felt less moved by reading one of Whitman’s poems silently to myself than I do listening to Tennyson or Poe being read aloud. For me, the emotional reward is locked in the words themselves, and I don’t feel the poet’s voice is only or even best captured in sound. The quality of silence and intimate connection with the written word is, I feel, as valid and rewarding as the quality of sound and open demonstration. Either of those extremes (and a great deal in between) can express the poet’s voice, for I feel that “voice” is not restricted to what our ears hear and mouths shape, just as language is not defined by one tongue or limited to one species.
As to why we write if not to also express aloud, I have no real answer but to say that I write for a variety of reasons. I write original stories, which I hope to share with others when they are finished. But I also write to record thought, to take a snapshot of an emotion. These snapshots are no less valuable to me for being kept to me than a picture snapshot of a loved one would be if I kept it hidden away under my pillow. I feel writing itself is expression, whether or not we ever add other forms of expression onto it. In some ways, the writing kept private is the most valuable to me, just as those picture snapshots are. I am less likely to share, not because others may not appreciate it, but because its value is already complete.
I realize I’m drifting off the original statement and perhaps freewrites are meant to be more poetic and less of a ramble, but I had to articulate why I reacted to it the way I did.
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