Kay Ryan:

It’s such an interesting paradox: we can see a voice; we hear through the eyes. But I think that’s the way it is, really, with poetry: I think poetry’s voice happens in the reader’s head. The voice need never pass over anybody’s actual physical vocal chords. I could imagine that some of Emily Dickinson’s poems were never said aloud. And come to think of it, what voice could be their mental equal? The best poet’s best voice is never transmissible outside of individual skulls, and that’s fine by me. The poet speaks to one reader at a time, forever.