Listening Voices is a set of meticulously crafted poems that transform a deep study of music into shapes and sounds and spaces that tickle the reader's ear and eye and mind. From the opening section, Carroway Seeds-an engagement with Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano-through the long elegiac final section, Listening Voices-written in memoriam for Noble's childhood friend, the guitarist Ray Ernst-these are cerebral and cunning poems, that shape shift in ways that suggest both concrete poetry and musical scores. In these dazzling compositions, poems dwell inside poems and reading/listening happens along many simultaneous lines. Reading as improvisation? Yes. And seeing as composition in real time. Certainly. And hearing chord progressions in blocks of text. Of course. It's all music and it's all poetry. Listening Voices is a thoughtful and deeply moving book-as visually captivating as it is intellectually and emotionally gratifying-that will appeal to fans of cutting edge contemporary poetry and music.
