I write with my ears. I believe you can instill feelings with rhythm, what Rilke called “the dance of the fruit experienced”. We can, when taking it slow, give the reader a chance to breathe, to reflect and to regain energy. They can, by virtue alone of a number of clauses be given respite, comfort and safety.
And then we can take that away. With driving syllabic pistons we can take that away. With single bursts of thought that seem like they have terminate there but then instead drive onward and then instead they twist around and then instead they lead you to the moment where you should breathe but you are breathless, you are vulnerable, you are beat.
Rhythm has power. The story is in the walls, in the speaker, in the listener and the space between them, the intimacies given and withdrawn. We should never forget our ears and the rhythm of our own growing or flagging heartbeats.
I am grateful to finally have audiobooks out for Charcoal and A God of Hungry Walls. They let me show off a place where my work is strongest and transform it again in the reading and telling. Poetry was made for voices and while the novel is not quite poetry, there is no storytelling that is not indebted to poets.
I leave you with the words of the great philosopher Norman Cook, known also as Fatboy Slim: “if you walk without rhythm, you won't attract the worm but if you walk without rhythm, you'll never learn.”