about James Robison
poem text
discussion at Voice Alpha
read by Kathleen Fitzpatrick
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2 min 4 secs
read by Dick Jones
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1 min 58 secs
read by Nic Sebastian
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1 min 55 secs
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Group reading audio submission guidelines here.
Previous group readings:
We Were Engineered to Want by Hannah Stephenson
[...] Jones, Kate Fitzpatrick and I tackle The Slender Scent by James Robison, sent in to Whale Sound as an audio submission by [...]
Thanks, Nic, for letting us showcase this poem by James Robison. I fell in love with it the first time I read it on the page. I found it posed challenges when read aloud because it explores so many emotions, and shifts, like movements in a piece of music, from tranquil to tempestuous moments. To successfully knit the movements together, I tried to feel as much compassion for the negative elements: rebel angels, water moccasin, bailiff and wrathful stormy god, as I easily felt for the narrator and filament bound pelican. I enjoyed hearing how you and Dick brought something slightly different to the reading.
Our native accents add another distinctive difference to the readings, particularly in the vowels. The alternate pronunciation of ‘aqua’ and ‘wrath’ produced interesting, variant effects – an assonant echo in mine, which played off other sounds in the other two readings.
I had to record this poem several times to get a reading I liked, and even then, it wasn’t exactly to my satisfaction. Did you both have that experience? Beyond just messing up a word here or there, one must find the right mood to express the words. Sometimes I was too angry with them, or too passionate. Sometimes too slow or fast. After a while I just settled for the best overall. Naturally, when you’re doing a live public reading you only get one try.
Thank you, Nic, for another fun project.
And thanks to James Robison for allowing us to use his beautiful words.
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[...] -The Slender Scent by James Robison -We Were Engineered to Want by Hannah Stephenson [...]
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[...] Group reading: ‘The Slender Scent’ by James Robison [...]
[...] Group reading: ‘The Slender Scent’ by James Robison [...]