Vocalisthenics

Most modern poetry is written to be seen & not heard; much of it is (in a vocal sense at least) unspeakable. To British Poet Richard Church, this is a "monstrous state of the art." In a preface to an anthology of Poems for Speaking, recently published in Britain, he plumps hard and solemnly for 1) poems that a reader can get his mouth around, and 2) readers with muscular lips and jaws to handle what's on hand now.

To meet the standards proposed for them, poets may have to recast their whole techniques. But readers, on their part, can help themselves with a few simple exercises. Here, according tp Poet Church, is how to do it: . "Try humming the letter 'M' to yourself, gradually increasing volume until the lips are vibrating so forcibly that the whole head and shoulders are throbbing, like the breast of a nightingale. If this does not happen, then your production is too far back in the mouth. Bring the sound forward by picturing it as culminating on your closed lips; but lips only just closed, like two ripe blackberries touching each other and almost bursting in the contact.

"To strengthen your lips, grasp them firmly in the fist and pull them out like a handful of cotton-wool. Do this continually until they ache.

"Attack the sides of the throat in the same way, working the fingers round and round in a circular motion for several minutes until the blood is flowing freely through the stimulated vessels of the throat."

If after this workout any energy remains, read a poem aloud.

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