An audience at a reading, Hall notes, should remember that "it's different from reading a poem. Basically, you want to listen for pleasure - pleasure in the sounds of the words, pleasure in the moment - with no thought of interpretation. Just take it in, and let it flow through you.

"I compare listening to spoken poetry to learning a foreign language. At first you hear words and translate them into your own language. Then, you get to the point where you can make that leap to thinking in the other language. To get the most out of a reading, you need to make that leap - to turn off the translation machine, and just listen to the flow of that spoken language. You don't want to be writing a critical essay in your mind as you're listening."

Tad Richards takes on William Carlos Williams and Donald Hall

What's That Over By The Wheelbarrow?

in the approximate vicinity
of the albino poultry.
Donald Hall

Whatever chicken, broad or narrow,
That pecked beside that red wheelbarrow,

May have appeared, to judge or wino,
It certainly was not albino.

Mr. Hall, a farmer-poet-
New Hampshireman, should surely know it.

It may have been Ameraucana,
Imported from Brazil or Ghana,

Both noted for abundant fauna.
Perhaps the Rumpless Araucana

-- But could so much indeed depend
On barnyard fowl with no rear end? ...

A reading at University of Virginia

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