Jed Rasula, from "The American Poetry Wax Museum"

The poet's voice has long been our cultural paradigm for a voice that compels assent by imputing to all who hear it an agreement about its priority. The poet's honeyed voice is a benchmark of the irresistible, the voice one cannot help but attend to. The poet's voice, complicit with a cultural voice-over, is intimately bonded to a sense of helplessness, or ecstatic inertia. Stunned with gratitude, we gape openmouthed at the sound of a voice, a voice ringing in our ears in the museum headset: the voice of the other implanted directly in our heads, a technical effect, a voice-over.