Comment by madacoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by madacoo | Hacker News Reader

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Thanks for sharing this.

I found it difficult to parse the initial couple of lines because I was constantly attempting to read by attaching meaning to the spellings: "Eye halve" is a bit frightening in that sense. But then I realised I can read the text as sounds and almost ignore the spellings. Listening to what the sounds made in my head allowed for a much faster pace of comprehension because I didn't have to keep correcting myself.

This poem demonstrated for me that it is possible to read and listen simultaneously, and that I don't usually do that. It seems that it would probably add to the experience of other poems to read them in this manner.

I think this is how all poems should be read, and I didn't realize until just now that I automatically did that.

There is apparently a big divide between people who subvocalize when they read and those who don't. Those who don't tend to read much faster than those who do which is why speedreading techniques tend to focus on eliminated subvocalization. The problem is that people who subvocalize tend to need to do so in order to understand the text.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

Thanks for the term - I think I typically don't subvocalize, but I do when I read poems.

I wonder whether the people who do subvocalize when they read tend to be better at writing poetry (or songwriting, or just writing beautiful prose.) I would expect that they'd have been subconsciously training themselves to the "feel" of good meter.

There might be a correlation, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule. I've been told that my prose -- and poetry -- is good, and I definitely don't subvocalize.

One part I can't "translate" is this:

    It plainly marques four my revue

"It plainly marks for my review"

It does! A lot, imho.

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