In reading poems aloud, we use not only our eyes and mind but our whole body, voice, ears, gestures. We experience a poem’s physical effects, how its emotion moves us as we speak it or hear it. In this class we will use Sound Ideas: Hearing and Speaking Poetry as our guide, with chapters on line, sound, rhythm, meter, imagery, and the like, those elements that make up poems, always with attention to reading aloud.
INSTRUCTOR: Gene McCarthy taught English at Holy Cross College for thirty five years and has been teaching at WISE since 2008 and offering poetry reading sessions at Briarwood Retirement Community. Besides Sound Ideas, he co-edited with Thomas Doughton From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester Slave Narratives, an edition of eight narratives by ex-slaves who lived in Worcester.
REQUIRED BOOKS Sound Ideas: Hearing and Speaking Poetry, by B. Eugene McCarthy and Fran Quinn, Hobblebush Books, ISBN: 978-098459297.
