Electronic Poetry Review: A Response

Poem with Citations from the O.E.D by Francisco Aragon


I found in Aragon's work something poignant, an undeniable significance that welled up inside, much like a secret voice coaxing me to the keyboard, urging me to heed and record.

Aragon seems troubled through the first few stanzas, trying to reconcile something of 'voyce' and expression. Does the deaf-mute shout?.. in lacking standard communication, does this individual not still possess an inner voice, articulate thoughts? Strange then that we so stigmatize a person for hearing 'voices'. Do we not all hear them, a communal unspoken voice or one which speaks to us soundlessly through memory, through the impressions of family or experience? To lock them up would be a self-denial and abusive, for they remain inside and linger all the same.

I felt that the last few stanzas implied a sense of connection, an unspoken bond perpetuated even beyond death through memory. Even in sorrow, the "voiceless thought" persists, and I felt a strange sense of comfort in that idea, that I have these memories and voices with which to weather stress or exult in joy.