Poems 1: Out Loud

April is Poetry Month.

Why April? Probably because a key English poem  -- one of the very first -- opens with a description of April.

(Not this guy's.)

The first sentence is epically long. The middle of this sentence is unintelligible to modern speakers of English without help. The rest is surprisingly accessible but only if you read it out loud.

Preferably like you are doing your very best Geoffrey Chaucer impression. Think Downton Abbey minus 500 years. 

There he is.

If you find your brain shutting down, just skip to the end for now.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne;
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open yë --
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages --
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke.

Yep. It's as I've always said, "April showers make the world flower drunk. Breezes and birdsong in the sunny fields, lying awake at night fucked in the heart  -- makes you need a spiritual journey."

Poetry Lesson One, from someone who's read so much poetry he's ruined himself for anything else, is the first lesson this early poem teaches us:

You have to read poems out loud. Half of what poems mean is in the sound of them.

Poets string similar sounding syllables together.
They play around with vowel sounds.
Poets take advantage
of opportunistic pauses.

Remember in 10 Things I Hate About You when the English teacher raps Shakespeare?

Sir William?!

If you're someone who says "I don't get poetry" AND you're someone who's never read poems out loud, you should instead say "I haven't taken the time to actually hear any poems."