I smell a mammith. Olert the troops!
Whale Child is writing a play, he says. Or rather, typing it on my laptop. That’s the opening line. I love the way he spells words aloud to himself as he writes, enunciating each consonant and vowel half a dozen times on a rising pitch as if he were Robert Pinsky, or a piano-tuner. (Was I writing plays – or anything, for that matter - when I was six?)
I’ve been listening to him (Pinsky, not Whale Child) read some of his stuff online. Not very satisfying – he seems to go exaggeratedly for enunciation over pretty much everything else, which makes the overall experience slow, and really rather painful. Check the readings out here and see what you think.
Ick, to Pinsky’s reading. Couldn’t get through it. Agreed on the over-enunciation, and many of his pauses are too long without any payoff.
Bravo to the play writing!
And thanks to you, the word “frabjous” jumps into my mind at all odd hours of the day.
I feel that was about Mark Doty as well. No need for the extra enunciation, let your work stand on its own and just read the poem!
January – Thanks for the Doty tip — good to know what to avoid.
[...] Clifton, in my view. (And by the way, although I have expressed reservations about Pinsky’s enunciation preferences in the past, I do consider him a good reader [...]