Mind Harp's Literary Sound Library
Literary sounds are visual sounds. They always amaze me. I hear
them in color. Here are some of my favorites:
John Berendt
"Conversation subsided to a muted hum, and the sound of shuffling cards
swept through the house like autumn leaves blowing across a lawn."
from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Emily Carr
"There's a torn and splintered ridge across the stumps I call the 'screamers.'
These are the unsawn last bits, the cry of the tree's heart, wrenching
and tearing apart just before she gives that sway and the dreadful groan
of falling, that dreadful pause while her executioners step back with their
saws and axes resting and watch. It's a horrible sight to see a tree felled,
even now, though the stumps are grey and rotting. As you pass among them
you see their screamers sticking up out of their own tombstones as it were.
They are their own tombstones and their own mourners."
from Hundreds and Thousands
Author bio: Visit the Emily
Carr Institute of Art and Design, a wonderful tribute to a wonderful
lady (artist, adventurer and gypsy).
Carrie Fisher
"Wouldn't you have loved to live in the time when they did the Morandi,
their laughter filling the positive space like a sky full of birds, the
negative space so far away that the No of it just couldn't be heard."
from Delusions of Grandma
Author bio: Visit Carrie's
Bio Page!
Martin Cruz Smith
"A piano toured the Rio Grande, its black lid raised as a sail."
from Stallion Gate
Author bio: While driving through New Mexico, Martin Cruz Smith passed
a road sign for Stallion Gate and inquired where it led. The result is
this novel, his first since Gorky Park. Mr. Smith is part Indian.
He lives in California with his wife and three children.
Email address: mindharpweb@yahoo.com
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