Since yesterday's poetry reading,
I've been pondering (feeding
my desperate need to know
how to better my po-
etry) the differences between
the heard and merely seen.

[More:]

What struck me most when I was reading yesterday was that some of what I consider my best written poems were not as good as some of my lesser poems when performed aloud. I've always recorded and listen to my poems several times during the drafting/editing process. But somehow the distinction between written and performance is never quite so distinct as when I have an audience or become part of one myself.

Reading aloud yesterday, the poems that worked better were simpler. They didn't require as much thought or reading between the lines. They also used more devices like rhyme to make them easier to remember and almost set up an expectation in the audience about what word/sound would come next. (Ok, so there's nothing new about these observations. But it's nice to experience them first hand, rather than just read someone else writing about them.)

Perhaps, in part, the reason for this is do with the type of audience I had - the general public, as opposed to poetry-lovers, who might have been happier to do more work themselves when listening to the poems. This could also explain why I notice different things when listening to podcasts of my own work while exercising than when I am concentrating solely on listening to the poem while simultaneously looking at a written copy.

Whatever the reason for the differences though, I certainly seem to experience poetry differently read aloud than when I hear it in my head. But how how does this help me to write better written and performance poetry? Answers on a postcard please!