How important is
music to your poetry?
Music is central to my poetry. The music of language, that is. I feel
very strongly that poetry should really need no accompaniment. The music should
come from the sound of the words themselves, in their chosen order, and the
syllables and the silences and the line breaks should make up the notes.
Language itself is music. That’s poetry. The accents, the dialects, the
combination of verbs and nouns, the rests leading up to intensity, the
quietness, the noise of language. For me this is the struggle and the pleasure
of poetry. For me form is a bit of a ruse, although I strongly admire those who
make original music out of the frames that make up sonnets and villanelles and
odes (although these days I often find them boring to the ear). I live for the
sound of the language, of people’s voices, the way they talk when they don’t
know anyone is listening. This was my childhood in the outports and quiet
corners of Newfoundland. This is my poetry.
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