“Singing the Undulations”
Photograph by John Diamond, M.D.
Arthur Waley writes that Roger Fry, the art critic, “thought verse ought to be printed in lines that undulated in a way to reinforce the rhythms.”[1]
In essence, that’s what I try to do with my “compositions” – merely singing the undulations of the poet’s rhythms.
And I love his reference to undulation, for that is exactly as I feel the rhythms – as waves. With every line I observe my hand move to the particular waveform of the lines of the poet’s inner voice, singing.
My hand, conducted by the poet, undulates as it conducts my singing.
[1] One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, New Edition (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962), p. 6.
