I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I was excited to hear this story on NPR. It reinforces things I've come to realize on my own about Joyce and poetry in general.

I mentioned briefly once before about my experience reading Ulysses, and how I discovered the importance of enjoying the language of the book, perhaps more than the story itself. When I attempted Finnegans Wake (or at least the first fifty pages of it) I was even less focused on the story and tried to merely be carried along by the rhythm and sound of the words.

This also reflects a bit of my experience with reading poetry. I meant to write about this once, but I never got around to it. Here's the short version: when I was in high school I didn't understand poetry. I would read it for class assignments and try to find whatever "hidden" meaning in it that I could (a misguided practice I later realized), but I just didn't seem to connect with poetry the way other people did.

Then one day I was listening to NPR and heard a show hosted by the then-National Poet Laureate featuring poems read aloud by their authors. I remember one poem in particular that was written by an African-American woman. Hearing her read it in her own voice brought the poem to life for me. For the first time I felt like I really got it, and the key was simply the sound of the poem. All along I had been struggling because I was only reading poetry as it was written on the page. I had never developed an ear for the music of poetry.

Since then I try to hear poetry read aloud by the author as often as possible, because it lets me know how the words are supposed to sound. James Joyce reading Finnegans Wake is certainly no exception.