Week 14

I recorded myself reading the poems I was considering reading for our performance, "Incidents in Cartography", "Odyssey", and "Roadkill". I was interested mainly in figuring out pacing. I had read all of these poems so many times that I already felt pretty comfortable with how they sounded in every other way, except for pacing. Listening to "Odyssey", I realized that I had to really slow myself down because the rate I was reading it in my initial recording wasn't allowing enough time for the images to seep. With "Roadkill", I discovered that the tone with which I read the poem was actually a decision I had to make. Did I want it to be sardonic at the end? Did I want it to be sentimental? I realized that I had to make the tonal shifts within the poem obvious with my voice, so I rerecorded myself changing the tone of my voice and the pacing with each quatrain and couplet. Finally, I realized that with "Incidents in Cartography" that one of the things I like most about it is the conversational tone in the beginning that then shifts to majestic, so I decided to read it as I would say it to any old buddy of mine and then slow it down and put more weight on the words as I neared the close. It was pretty interesting recording myself. I think my voice changes when I read aloud. Hm.