Whispering on NPR

So, I wrote this post about two weeks ago, thinking that I had actually posted it to the blog.  I had not.  I have been neglectful, but only because I've been stressing to find a place in my new home.  By the way, I'm already sick of horses, horse metaphor, and horse lingo.  You are on notice, Kentucky.

So, this untimely post will have to do for today, but tune back in soon for my thoughts on the most fabulous of topics, including: the weird, more than a little creepy tombstone for "America" a wack-a-doo in Charlottesville has erected (to include a discussion of none other than Herr Karl Marx) ; Today's second hour of On Point Radio, and the notion that our entire lives have become corporatized ; the funny things you hear on Pandora (a hint) ; movies: Valkyrie, Drag Me to Hell, and Terminator ; and books: E.M. Forster's Howards End

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Why, whenever people get on NPR, do they insist upon whispering?  My guess is that they’re simply not close enough to the mic, or that the local radio station where they’re sitting doesn't have good enough sound equipment.

Either way, it’s painful to listen to – just when they get to the crux of the sentence, they seem to lilt ever more softly, as if this in itself indicates the seriousness of what they’re saying.  The different voices heard on NPR  and other media outlets are fascinating.

When I say “poem voice” do you know what I’m talking about?  That voice that otherwise normal-speaking people affect whenever they begin to recite verse?  Because poetry is ... Serious ... Ephemeral ... More Important Than Ordinary Words ...

True, true, and true.  Which is why we don’t need to say them in a stupid, ostentatious way.  Poems are serious, ephemeral and more important than ordinary words because of the way they’re written, not because of the tone they’re read in.

Which is why I find that “poem voice” is most often affected when reading what I consider [one’s own] really bad poetry.  You know, the kind of poetry that obtains the term “poem” merely by being a few otherwise grammatically normal sentences broken up over multiple lines?  If you didn’t use poem voice for these poems it would be more obvious that “hey, that lady’s just reading a few sentences!” ( http://www.onpointradio.org/2008/12/hedge-fund-poet)

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain ways that one’s inflection or pacing should be changed when reading a poem – but they usually have something to do with the content of the poem. Like a song (imagine that!) it doesn’t work to sing every song in the same “song voice” -  you have to give inflection to a song based upon its individual character.

Second only to “poem voice” is “scholar voice” which is often accompanied by a slight backward tilt and subtle shake to the head, the gentle half-closing of the eyes, and repetitive, slow, circular gesticulations.

See: Graduate English Department.