Reading and Recitation

Today, my professor conducted an activity where we had to read a poem out loud. Now, a little context about this poem… we were asked to write a sonnet to share in class. Anyway, we were asked to read these sonnets out loud. We didn’t have any theme that we were supposed to follow, just a fixed rhyme scheme.

The first time we read them out loud, our professor fixed us with a glare. “You sound dead!” he said. (Something along those lines). He told us that we were just reading the poems and not feeling them. He told us to talk to the text, to feel it, and interact with it. He told us to speak to the poem when we read it, and that would make it sound so much better.

The next time, we recited the poem rather than just reading it. That brings me to the main point here. There’s a difference between reading and reciting. Reading is just… reading. Using your eyes and forming the words with your mouth.

Reciting, on the other hand, is when the words take a detour through your heart on the way from your eyes to your mouth. They flow through you and become a part of you, so that you understand them in a particular way and no one else understands them the way you do. Reciting involves emotion and making your own meaning. It isn’t something you can do immediately and takes time, like we learned practically today.

This process of recitation can work better when you learn about these things called sense groups. It’s basically when you identify the places where you pause in the poem, and how that makes sense. Those words between the pauses are sense groups. Your pauses help the poem make sense, and it shows what you feel when you read too. 

So, to conclude, the way you read is important. It tells us what you feel and how you think.