I’m trying out a new vision for my work as a Voice Actor. I love poetry. I was brought up by a father who quoted Robert Frost at length (as did his mother before him). So, as a way to feed my own creative vision, I’m starting a new series here on my website: LMNewtonVO.com which is called Voice in Verse. A series of poems recorded by yours truly. There may be heartbreaking poems. There may be funny poems, or ridiculous poems. There may be poems I don’t understand, but will try to understand by reading them aloud. This is not about being perfect, it’s about doing what is meaningful to me.
In my voiceover work, I record a lot of pieces that are “corporate” and require me to adopt my most friendly, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable self. These poems (I hope) will allow me to be my quirky, irreverent, vulnerable self.
A friend recently introduced me to this beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. It seems to completely encapsulate exactly where I feel I am in my journey as a creative person. So, if you will indulge me, please enjoy “The Journey” by Mary Oliver.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could save.Mary Oliver
The Journey