Thomas Lux's Voice

A story can exhibit a great deal of information and present the reader with a tale rich in plot and atmosphere. A story can have these and more, but who translates the words on the paper into what becomes the experience of the story abundant with emotion and life? To Thomas Lux the answer would be the voice inside each person’s head. Lux sets forth the argument in his 1997 poem The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently that the voice emanating from within the reader’s head whenever the reader is silently reading is the true writer of the literary work because the words on the paper are inert until the reader’s unique voice translates them into life in ways that reflects their experiences and their views on topics.

To Lux the voice eponymous
He sees that the writer has scribed the word but believes that the barn the reader’s inner voice says “is a barn you [the reader] know or knew.” To him the barn does not have a universally accepted view to those who read it. He adds that “Some people / hated the barn they knew, / some people love the barn they know.” The experiences and memories that shape the inner voice of each reader are different and the sentiments of the barn are dissimilar because of that. Each voice is unique in its view of the barn. Some would like to see it razed to the ground. Some would like to see it built up and expanded. Each person would have different visions of the barn in mind. Lux puts forth the picture of “horse-gnawed stalls, / hayloft, black heat tape wrapping / a water pipe, a slippery / spilled chirr of oats from a split sack, / the bony, filthy haunches of cows…” to allow the reader to make their own view of that barn and further strengthen his reasoning. Even though Lux provided the written imagery of the barn the reader will visualize a barn distinctive to their voice using the words on the paper.The gnawed stalls and watery pipes will still reflect each reader’s mind differently not matter how much detail is