The Sound of Poetry

Poet Lore Fall/Winter 2015 Editors’ Page addresses the idea of sound in poetry and the poetic voice. “Becuase how a poet sounds matters so much to us at Poet Lore, we read the poems we’re considering aloud to one another at each editorial meeting – a decisive exercise. Too often, stanzas that looked promising on the page fall flat in the air. . . It’s hard to describe but easy to recognize the cadences of poetry. As Robert Frost wrote in a letter to his former student John Bartlett a century ago: ‘The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader . . . . I wouldn’t be writing all this if I didn’t think it was the most important thing I know.'”

Also included in this issue is the essay “Say the Word” by Mark Sullivan, which “explores the threshold between hearing and interpreting word-sounds.”