The Sound of One Hand Snapping

Poetry and lit readings have some weird stereotypes, starting with the berets. Of course we all wear berets, and I must say I own 4 different berets, wear them often, and look forward to buying more should they appear at flea markets. However, I find myself in the extreme minority with the berets. 

More common are things like snapping instead of clapping. Oddly, I’ve seen more people in my job break into mass snapping than I’ve seen at lit readings, which is probably the reason that cool kids, the kind that go to lit readings, no longer snap. But it’s not extinct, and certainly more common than the berets. 

The giant pervasive stereotype seen in almost every reading regardless of type of poetry is what I call “poetry voice” or “poet speak”. Do you know this phenomenon? Do you hear people reading with this? Let me try to describe this with words, and perhaps I’ll have to record a video(s) showcasing what I mean. 

Poets reading their own poetry, or even other people’s, take their reading seriously, and speak seriously. With deliberate intensity. There are deliberate stresses on various words, and pauses with breath held. Usually when the breath is held for a beat, they raise a hand. The cadence of the poem becomes stilted in this very specific way. And that way, that sound, that rhythm, washes itself through every other poem the reader performs, thus negating all the thought and effort of choosing line breaks and enjambments on the written page. The spoken-word/slam poetry has its own version of this, it sounds to me like the same exact rhythm, just faster. 

Love it or hate it, it is pervasive. 

When you listen to old recordings of poets reading their writing in the early and mid 20th century, like Eliot, Plath, and Frost, they don’t go in for this. Each has their own voice and tone. Eliot staccato, Plath in a torrent, and Frost sounds like he is so bored he may fall asleep before he even gets to which path he decides to take! Whether you like any of that or not, they are unique cadences, tailored to the poems themselves.

Something with the Beats, I think, happened where this poetry voice started creeping into the norm, so that by the 1980s and 90s, right up to now, it’sthe standard and young poets – myself included – just absorb it and repeat it without much thought. 

I brought this quizzical phenomenon up with my PhD husband. He said in his MFA they were taught to do this kinda poet speak on purpose to show a different meaning, display different nuances the words could conjure. Considering this dimension confuses my opinion. I love this idea, but why does it mean everyone ends up saying their sonnets and free form poems with the same determined thudding scansion? 

Whatever you feel, you’ll definitely have a drink in one hand – leaving the other free to snap your appreciation into the air around you. 

Yours truly, 

One Hand Snapping

Photo is of my friend’s hand. I thought it very pretty.