It’s not just the words, but also the transmission of them.

Some people go to poetry readings because they’re not good readers themselves. They want someone else to do the heavy lifting.

But then it’s a presentational art. The experience is embedded in the performance and judged by the quality of the acting.

An inferior poet can seem great when the poem is acted well.

A great poet can be dismissed when poorly read.

Shakespeare remains as the gold standard because the Academies of Dramatic Arts have trained actors to embody and project the range of subtlety that poetry gives to words.

We hear it, we love it, it’s our cultural heritage.

These days, when too many teachers, trying to catch the attention of students who don’t read, give them watered down versions of the story in the current language of juvenile, when the story isn’t Shakespeare, just something he himself borrowed as a framework for heightened drama, the way Beethoven and Mozart took notes available to everyone and made music, the students without the words never experience Shakespeare and discount his reputation as not worth the effort.

I weep at the loss of a universe in decline.

And I weep at the well-meaning teachers who don’t know better and think they’re doing the right thing. Instead of raising the students up, the students drag them down to their own lower level and intelligence becomes artificial.

O world!

I think of the people reading their weak poetry to an audience that cheers.

Looking at the words flat on the paper, even poor readers can see the flat, that the experience was not inherent in the words but in the acting.

Oh, those long years ago, and I’ve said it before, how I tried in many ways to explore what art is, what’s inherent, what’s added by presentation. I read the phone book out loud and people cried. I said, “It’s the phone book.”

Words are almost sacred because they hold so much. Meaning, speculation, the clarification of thought. Without words to stabilize us, we would just be amorphous congregations of organic cells reacting to external stimuli.

Can’t people see that? And if not, why not?

I can’t just blame teachers, but we bear the burden. Our students don’t know because we didn’t teach them.

We didn’t teach them because we haven’t learned ourselves.

Words to the wise, because we always need them even if we’re not sufficiently wise:

	Read more.
	Think about what you read.

Taste the words, unlock them, assess them, determine from the range of content what fits the intended context.

We live by words.

If, oh if, if only, we knew more words, could find the words to let us know what we want to say, to feel, how to live.

If we respect the use of words, the whole world would be better.

Laws, for example, are only a surface manifestation. The intent behind the locution is where the meaning resides. Words allow a shallow quibble, distracting from the essence beneath.

How simple it is, can be, could be, should be.

We all want a better life, a better world.

Start with that.

Answer the hortatory cliche: “Tell me what you really think.”