Music Completes the Spoken Word

I once read somewhere the quote “music completes the spoken word” but did not really understand the true meaning of this until a few weeks ago. I was attending a reading at a local coffee house by the award-winning poet (and colleague of mine at the university where I teach), George Kalamaras. I have read George’s poetry, so knew this would be an artistically rewarding evening. I had not, however, anticipated the glimpse of satori that his final poem of the evening delivered.



I should explain that George’s poems contain many metaphors and imagery drawn from Eastern Wisdom traditions – particularly the Hindu-yogic tradition – so, listening to George recite them tends to produce an almost meditative state of mind anyway. But the finale took this even deeper.


For his last poem of the evening, George was accompanied by a cello and a guitar – both musicians improvising as the poem was read. The soft music of the stringed instruments seemed to carry the words of the poem to an ethereal level. You could actually feel the energy of the Universe resonating through everyone in the audience. Collectively, we were engrossed in the moment, our temporal reality suspended as George read.


Afterwards, I attempted to capture the experience in my journal and, though I am admittedly no poet, preserved the evening for me with this poem:

Cello poem and poet song

lifted on kensha strings of guitar

to the cloud-ringed mountains.

The bodhisattva pauses.

Glimpse of satori.