How To Speak Poetry

In early 2004, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery mounted a solo exhibition of my work entitled My Hand Sings Red and Lakehead University invited me to speak while I was in the city for the opening.  I introduced my slide talk by reading part of Leonard Cohen’s prose poem "How To Speak Poetry" , backing each line with a detail of what was then my recent work.

“How to speak poetry” is advice to poets on how to read their own work out loud.   It's a beautiful and powerful piece of writing, and it resonated deeply with the audience reeling from current world events.  For this post, I've scanned some of those slides.

How To Speak Poetry

There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horrors of this time.

Do not even try

We have seen newsreels of humans in pain and dislocation

You are playing to people who have experienced catastrophe

This should make you very quiet

Speak your words.  convey the data.  Step aside

Everyone knows you are in pain

Step aside and they will know what you know because they know it already
You have nothing to teach them

You are not more beautiful than they are

You are not wiser

You are among the people

Then be modest

Speak the words, convey the data, step aside

This is an interior landscape

It is inside

It is private

Respect the privacy of the material

These pieces were written in silence

The courage is to speak them

The discipline is not to violate them

Let the audience feel your love of privacy

Even though there is no privacy

The poem is nothing but information

It is the constitution of the inner country

Do not be afraid to be weak

Do not be ashamed to be tired

Leonard Cohen