More Poems From Today - April 14

You Just Can't Ride On The Bus

At dusk
In the quiet places
Of my mind
I sing a song
I wanted to say
Say often
Out Loud
Say how
Can you look at humanities suffering and ...

June Robinson


Writing About Reading Poetry Out Loud
By Jimmie Orlando

The first time I read everybody clapped halfway through the poem.
On the second poem I started making mistakes and going back to correct them,
ruining the time and feel of the poem on the page.

Which is another difficulty for me because the feel I have for line breaks
on a page means nothing when I'm reading the poem out loud.

I've been writing for the page and these line breaks seem funny and clumsy
when I read them to the audience.

On top of all that, I make a lot of mistakes when I read, because I am
simply not good at reading. And when I read for myself I do a lot of
doubling back so I can maintain the context of the author's intention
and not superimpose my own context over their words.

I remember writing a love poem for my girl friend a long time ago
while she was sleeping. I knew that my sentiments were true
and that I had expressed them with what I felt was a beautiful,
soft and lyrical manner.

And the first thing she said to me was that I had mis-spelled "intrepret",
which I have probably misspelled again here on this page.

So what I will do from now on is leave the poems on the page as I see them.
And when I read I will tell you about the poems and that will be my reading.