Podcast: Emily Dickinson's "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)"

My first podcast is about performing poetry, using an Emily Dickinson poem as a specific example. My performance of the poem can be heard in the Youtube video above. The podcast and corresponding show notes are below. Thanks for listening!



Here is the link to hear the podcast:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3cZLpi86bWDbGZfM3VJVXNJWUk/view?usp=sharing



Show Notes

Poetry Out Loud recitation contest website:
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/

"I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)"
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45703

A fantastic example of poetry recitation, "Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pFW7etciz0

 The Tone Map and other lesson plans:
http://www.poetryoutloud.org/teaching-resources/lesson-plans


Script:

Today we're going to be discussing of one my favorite poems, Emily Dickinson's "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)" and tips for performing poems.

Reading poetry is lovely, but performance brings the poem into life, makes it 3D when you share it with others.

In my last video about Archetypes, I mentioned the ancient storytellers. Many of these stories, such as the Odyssey and the Epic of Sundiata from Mali in West Africa were long, hours long, memorized poems performed by artists. In Mali where the oral tradition is rich, the poem performers were called griots and they were revered as repositories of the culture's history and stories, like human libraries.  They were the chief source of entertainment and education in oral cultures.

Poetry Out Loud is a high school poetry recitation contest for high school students across the country.

Students select a poem from that year's list of classic and contemporary poetry, then practice and memorize their selection. A school-wide competition selects one winner who goes on to compete at the regional, then state finals. The fifty state winners receive an all expenses paid trip to Washington to compete for the national championship.

Preparing for a poetry performance has several steps.

Find a poem that you like, then study the poem, every line, every word, until you understand what it means. Your teacher may assign you to paraphrase the poem, or rewrite it in your own words. This may mean using the dictionary to look up words for which you're unsure of the meaning or pronunciation.

Look specifically at the title and what it adds to the meaning.

Look for the SHIFT in the poem. Nearly every poem, even haiku, will have a shift, a change, in tone or story or emotion.

Once you understand what the poem is saying, begin to work on your recitation.

As you work on memorizing your poem, a good in-class assignment that your teacher may give you, or that you could do on your own, is to create a TONE MAP of the poem.

To do this, you will need a good list of possible emotions or moods that the speaker of the poem may be feeling. I have linked to a list in Google Docs in the Show Notes on my blog that may get you started, but don't be afraid to add your own emotions.

Would the speaker be fearful, enthusiastic, dreamy, exhausted?

Take a clean copy of the poem and write out what emotion can be expressed in each line, or chunk of lines.

Then, as you speak, plan how your speed and your volume and your inflection will convey the emotion of the poem.

I'm going to spend some time on each of these three  techniques.

Speed. In general, speaking slower is always preferred to speaking quickly. When you are with a friend, you can get away with a much quicker pace than when you are addressing a group. You may feel your pace is artificially slow, but you want to give your full attention to each word, just as the poet did when he or she was choosing it.

Put purpose and meaning behind your chosen pace. Quickness can indicate a lightheartedness or the anxiety that comes with worry or fear or stress!

Volume also has a default and an emotional purpose.

In general, since you are speaking to a group at first without a microphone, you need to be loud and clear enough for the back row. Your default volume should be for the person who is farthest away from you. With that in mind, make your choices to change your volume based on the purpose of creating the emotion of the poem.

Higher volume can indicate anger or sadness or excitement.

I'm sure you can also imagine situations when a lower hushed volume can convey the exact same emotions: a quiet anger. "I am so angry." Or sadness. "I am so sad" or excitement "omg, omg!"

Remember, this is YOUR interpretation of the poem.

Your teacher may assign a fun game to help you explore all the possibilities of interpretation. You each make up a five word sentence: "How are you doing today?" or "I really like to dance" etc. and then you say the sentence out loud to the class as many times as possible, in as many ways as possible, putting emphasis on each word or changing your highs and lows, volume and speed. Look at how the meaning changes!

Finally, I want to say a few words about Inflection and pitch  changes. I'm going to do this specifically about my interpretation of the Dickinson poem, which you will find in a Youtube video on my blog page if you have not watched it already.

Emily Dickinson was born 1830 in Amherst, MA, died at 56, and wrote most of her work in the 10 years before the civil war. In her time of life, most people were born and died at home, instead of in the hospital. Watching a friend or relative at the end of his life may have been a familiar experience to Dickinson.

What I love about this poem and what I most wanted to express through pacing and inflection was the contrast between the formal solemnity of our culture's traditional rituals around the period before death - the hushed quiet, the will, the weeping, AND the doubt that may come at the end AND the unavoidable carnality or physicality of our bodies for which our rituals may be a disguise or distraction.

When I said "the eyes around had rung them dry" I was trying for a moment beyond sadness, when you have cried so much that you feel clean and empty. Perhaps this was a long illness and the inevitable would come as a relief.

I was trying for certainty to the afterlife for the line "breaths gathering firm" and the line about the king/or Christ himself, being a presence in the room.

And then the fly appears and there's nothing dignified or peaceful or holy about that. It's a strange interruption and it distracts the dying speaker for a moment, the moment that just happens to be her last. Sad? Yes. Strange? Yes, isn't death always so? Blackly funny? Perhaps.

Enjoy interpreting and performing your poems and I wish you luck and pleasure in the process!