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THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLYis not silent, it is a speaking-out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,a voice is *saying* itas you read. It's the writer's words,of course, in a literary sensehis or her "voice" but the soundof that voice is the sound of *your* voice.Not the sound your friends knowor the sound of a tape played backbut your voicecaught in the dark cathedralof your skull, your voice heardby an internal ear informed by internal abstractsand what you know by feeling,having felt. It is your voicesaying, for example, the word "barn"that the writer wrotebut the "barn" you sayis a barn you know or knew. The voicein your head, speaking as you read,never says anything neutrally- some peoplehated the barn they knew,some people love the barn they knowso you hear the word loadedand a sensory constellationis lit: horse-gnawed stalls,hayloft, black heat tape wrappinga water pipe, a slipperyspilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,the bony, filthy haunches of cows...And "barn" is only a noun- no verbor subject has entered into the sentence yet!The voice you hear when you read to yourselfis the clearest voice: you speak itspeaking to you. ~~-Thomas Lux