“the eye of the tabla” by devi laskar

In graduate school, I was fortunate to be a student of the late great Lucille Clifton. Not only was she an outstanding poet, but she was an exemplary teacher. And she used her wit and sense of humor to convey so many layers of meaning in her often short poems.

She frequently spoke about the “oral tradition” of stories, how stories whether in poetic or prose form, were told and retold and that’s how they were disseminated and ultimately remembered. One exercise of hers that has been particularly useful to me over the years has been reading one’s work aloud. If you are reading a sentence aloud and gasping for breath, then chances are it’s rambling and out of control and needs a trim.

I always appreciated Lucille’s “poet’s eye” and how she was able to move over a phrase or a line and be able to pluck out the most important details – “cut to the chase” so to speak. This is no less true for prose than for poetry.

Take a moment today, on the eve of Christmas, and give a few minutes time to yourself — read some of your work aloud, see how it flows and what you remember after you hear yourself say the words.