Reading a poem silently is an act of concentration. Hearing a poem read aloud is an act of recognition. Something in the body leans forward when language is given breath. The ear catches what the eye alone often misses: rhythm before meaning, tone before argument, the subtle choreography of pauses and stresses that turn words into music. Poetry is an oral art that learned to survive on the page. Long before poems were bound, they were sung, recited, and used in oral histories, traditions, reminders to keep recipes and cultures alive. Even now, poems retain this ancestry.
Line breaks are not just visual decisions; they are instructions for breath. Enjambment is not merely syntax; it is suspense. A comma can be a held note. A period can land like a footstep. When a poem is read aloud, the instructions of a comma, enjambment, and periods finally resolve into motion. Listening restores poetry’s time dimension. When a poem is spoken, it unfolds at human pace. You cannot rush grief. You cannot hurry a joke past its timing. The poem asks for your presence not your efficiency.
Listening to poetry in a hyper-productive, commodity-based society is an act of refusal. It rejects the demand that every minute justify itself, that attention be monetized, that language exist only to instruct, persuade, or convert. Poetry does none of this efficiently. It wastes time on purpose. And that is precisely why it matters.
“Today’s society is no longer a disciplinary society, but an achievement society.” - Byung-Chul Han from “The Burnout Society”
You cannot skim sound. You cannot multitask a metaphor as it ripples across your skin. The poem insists on duration, on slowness, on staying with something that does not promise a clear outcome. A poem heard aloud does not scale cleanly, does not translate into bullet points, does not become a productivity hack. Its value cannot be detached from the moment of attention that sustains it.
There is also the matter of voice itself. Every reader brings a body to the poem: an accent, a history, a set of emotional reflexes. Listening democratizes poetry in a way the page sometimes fails to do. You do not need to know what a sestina is to feel the pull of repetition. You do not need to parse metaphor to register sorrow carried in cadence. Sound bypasses intimidation. It invites those who think poetry is “not for them” to discover that it has always been speaking their language.
Listening to poetry also defies the market logic that treats language as a tool rather than a commons. A voice speaking a poem is not selling you anything. It is asking for presence, not purchase. It restores language to something shared, fragile, and alive. In choosing to listen, you choose unprofitable attention. You choose meaning that cannot be rushed. You choose, briefly, to live outside the clock.
“A poem is not a work of words alone; it is an event.” - Adrienne Rich from “Poetry and Commitment”
Perhaps most importantly, listening reminds us that poetry is relational. A voice implies a listener. A listener implies care. In a culture trained to consume text quickly and discard it faster, the act of listening is quietly radical. It says: stay. Let this pass through you. Allow meaning to arrive not as data, but as resonance.
Let us share this moment, yeah?
