[Jamestown1630]

That's fascinating; I will have to study your post when I have more time.

"I read aloud everything I write"

That's interesting - I never do, and never have when I've written poetry. What I do is read it over and over and over and OVER; and "hear" it in my "head" ;-)

Writing poetry - or songs, which are poetry, too - was always almost a mystical experience: it was as if one fell into a trance during the process; and when done, there was the product. You realized that you went THROUGH a process, to do it; but you couldn't really remember it.

(Of course, I wasn't a Dante, or a Blake ;-)

[mairdie]

It’s wonderful to hear of your process. I find process absolutely fascinating. Love the trance state image!

When young, I would recite poetry aloud as I walked to the rhythm. Usually Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. And the first job I ever got writing scripts, before I ever got into language design, I found I knew the rhythm of the sentence, when I didn’t know what the words were. My boss stopped me once and repeated back my sentence. Total nonsense. Whenever I didn’t know the word, I substituted a duh and there were so many in that sentence that it made no sense. Rhythm, to me, is almost everything.

Try the out loud thingie on a sentence, and tell me if you hear a difference in a sentence that you’ve already said in your head many times. You’ve got me really curious now.