An Audio Guide to Poetry Recitation - 20. David Mason on knowing

An Audio Guide to Poetry Recitation - 20. David Mason on knowing poems by heart


Audio Download

Here again is David Mason.

[Voice of David Mason] Poetry first attracted me as a boy because my parents read it out aloud to me. And I've always thought of it as an oral art more than a visual one -- some surface charm or intriguing sound has to be present for poems to lure me, and I've always been fond of getting them by heart, so I can carry them around in my head without a book. For one thing, I've often found myself alone, either hiking great distances or working out of doors, and being glad to have poems and songs by heart so I could entertain myself. I always like reciting them to my friends and family when occasion allows. Poems can diginify small moments of our lives, turning them into ceremonies or awareness. ultimately that's what poetry is about for me. It's a kind of verbal awareness of being alive in the world.