Carrier wave

The change in Bama's recitation was remarkable: from floundering among a rubble of words on the page to striding ahead steadily as from one stepping stone to another. Finding the rhythm of the language, the way its sounds are arranged, she was able to speak in a way that sounded almost natural.

I had asked her to sing a song she knew. There was embarrassment and a sheaf of paper covering face, but eventually, starting off quietly, she sweetly sang a few lines from a ballad. She almost stopped, but the rest of the stanza needed to be sung, so she continued to the end. More embarrassment as she finished. "That's beautiful", I said sincerely, "and see how a rhythm like the one you just sang can be the carrier wave for sentence after sentence in this transcript," and I sang the text like a song.


Finding that underlying structure of sound, the patterns of racing and dawdling, can be key for making encounters with texts meaningful. It's a process of converting texts to scripts. Suddenly a block of words becomes a voice speaking and the reader becomes partner in conversation.

Is it like this in all encounters: finding the voice of the other, responding with our own, sometimes just repeating what we've heard?

Bama relaxed visibly as each word presented itself as somewhere--on the slope or at the crest--on the surface of a sonic surge moving through the text--up, forward and down--like a form of breathing, like her own breath.