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Oratory

The spoken word, according to precise plan:

'Rhetoric'!

Is not to be trusted.

Oration is a power play, a skilled practice

Designed first to provoke and then, to persuade.

It can short circuit sense

Deliberately.

 

Apart from language chosen, and developed

To make best point,

The power of performance delivers to a prescribed end.

Polished oration plays our senses

Swamping reason in a wash of reactive feelings

Deliberately provoked and curried

To precise purpose.

 

Oratory is a skill

Designed and proven over centuries of practice

To disrupt - to influence - to convince.

It has nothing to do with the message delivered.

With the 'right' words and a calculated delivery

It is possible to 'sell' anything

To anybody.

 

Cynthia Buell Thomas

March, 2019

 

 

 

◄ The Joke

Attack From The Rear ►

Comments

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keith jeffries

Sun 10th Mar 2019 17:48

Cynthia,

This poem raises questions about the nature of the word itself. Do you consider oratory to be the clever use of language to manipulate or is merely the ability of some to be more articulate in what they say?

Thank you for this

Keith

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Martin Elder

Sun 10th Mar 2019 17:41

I am glad to say that it is a skill that you definitely have Cynthia. when ever I read any of your work I always imagine you reading it in a way that is totally and uniquely yours.


Wonderfully written. Hope to see you soon


Martin

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Sun 10th Mar 2019 15:47

Three versions of this piece dropped out of a notebook, from maybe three years ago. I laughed. And then decided to 'see' what it actually offered, if anything. I often have no clue about the immediate source of an idea when the 'write bug' strikes. But I have long been wary of 'oratory'. Who knows what struck me that day, that I 'had to write' and then forgot about it completely.

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