about Voice Alpha
A companion site to Whale Sound, Voice Alpha is a repository for thoughts, theories, suggestions, likes and dislikes and anything else related to the art and science of reading poetry aloud for an audience. If you would like to guest-blog at Voice Alpha, please email nic_sebastian at hotmail dot com.‘Dear Voice Alpha’ – poetry reading advice column
If you're trying to improve your poetry reading skills and would like some friendly critique to help you on your way, click here, where you will also find current examples of Voice Alpha critiques.Contributors
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Monthly Archives: February 2011
poetry out loud: must-visit websites
naturally, Voice Alpha is at the top of the list… Stop by and add your own favorites!
Posted in poetry-out-loud website
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out brest the blood, with stierne stremes rede
I love this! Lines from Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale read by UPenn Professor of English David Wallace for Penn Sound. Middle English text first, modern English below. Tho were the gates shet and cried was loude, “Do now youre devoir, yonge … Continue reading
poetry out loud: interview with ‘Linebreak’ editor
(This is one of an occasional series of interviews focusing on websites that feature poetry read out loud. Today we’re talking to Johnathon Williams, editor of the online audio poetry journal, Linebreak.) Most online poetry sites with an audio aspect … Continue reading
The Dazzling Patricia Smith
Kelli Russell Agodon has a great post about going to see the poet Patricia Smith, author of Blood Dazzler, and how inspired the reading left her. She meditates a bit on Smith’s reading style and delivery. She says, “Patricia was nothing … Continue reading
Posted in live performance, reading-as-performance
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do you hear music when you write your poems?
I did a Whale Sound reading last year of a poem by Erin Elizabeth Smith which included the words to a folk-song. I don’t have a good singing voice and don’t know anything about singing, but decided I would have … Continue reading
why I never bother to “practice” a reading anymore
Cedar Sigo on poetry readings.
Posted in live performance, reading-as-performance
2 Comments
audio submissions for Valentine’s Day
Woodrat Podcast is asking. Details here. Last stipulation below (emphasis mine) is my favorite! I’m asking for original contributions on the theme of Platonic love for an episode to be published in one week — on Valentine’s Day. [...] This … Continue reading
Poem performance in American Sign Language
Wow. Doesn’t this make you think? On so many levels. For example: Although there was nothing to hear, the background sound of people chattering and laughing while Luczak was performing made me think “Ssh! I can’t hear!” Raymond Luczak performs … Continue reading
Posted in reading-as-performance
6 Comments
To read or to recite? Dramatic versus Epic
I came late to the debate about reading versus recitation and just about everything that I’d have been minded to contribute was more than eloquently dealt with in the comments that followed the initial post. However, a process of thought … Continue reading
To read or to recite?
To read or to recite? This blog treats reading as normative for public performances of poetry among contemporary English-language poets, but for many in the spoken word community — to say nothing of poets in other cultures — recitation is … Continue reading
Posted in live performance, page and stage
28 Comments
