by B. Eugene McCarthy and Francis C. Quinn

Our book is called Sound Ideas because the ideas or meaning of poetry are conveyed as much by the way a poem is expressed, its sound, as by what is said. The sound and emotional impact of the ideas become available to us as we listen to a poem and speak it aloud. When we pick up the poem to read aloud, our eyes see the words, and our voices and bodies also become active, and the poem takes on dimensions beyond its state on the page.

Our book examines how one lifts a poem off the page and away from a solely intellectual response to it, explains how one hears its emotion, and how one speaks it so that its meaning becomes alive.

Taking a poem off the page means bringing it into the body by means of voice and often gesture. We know of no other book that presently explores concrete ways of hearing and speaking poems aloud with meaning.

Thus we venture into new territory in the treatment of poetry, new but essential.

© 2010 B. Eugene McCarthy and Francis C. Quinn | Site by Web Design for Writers