"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Of course it does, but why would anyone care?

The science of acoustics is concerned with the relationship between cause and effect. For a sound (or any moving force of energy) to be acoustic (Greek: akoustikos~ “of or for hearing, ready to hear) it must have three elements~ a generating mechanism (transduction), the acoustic wave (propagation) and reception (transduction). In simpler terms, something must make the sound, the sound must travel through a media that supports it (such as air or to a lesser extent water) and something must receive the sound. Without all of these parts in harmony nothing is “akoustos” (heard, audible).

When my wife and I were married twenty five years ago, I was given the distinct pleasure of being allowed to know one Phyllis Benson. Ms. Benson was a concert pianist and respected as one of the four finest harpsichord players on the planet. By tradition she was considered sixteenth in line of protégé from Beethoven. Glenda, my wife, studied classical piano with her and I enjoyed attending her lessons. These lessons were given weekly enmasse with ALL of her students in attendance, from the lowliest beginner (at one point this included my four year old niece) to a pair of individuals who were beginning their own concert careers.

The lesson commonly took three or four hours and no one was allowed to leave as each participant played the pieces they were presently working on and Ms. Benson critiqued. For my part, I was exposed to a dizzying array of keyboard compositions, but the point of the exercise was far simpler.

If the artist does not present, there is no art.

Art is acoustic.

It is not enough we produce. If the production is not presented in a final form, a form the artist considers the best they may create at that moment, then there is no art.

Ms. Benson understood that and taught it to me. Her students were required to produce in their lessons before her other students and in recital. A student unwilling was a student no more. She would not have her time wasted. Phyllis Benson was teaching an art form and the student would produce “art” at their level or produce nothing at all.

If a poet writes a poem, but nobody reads it… is it a poem?

No.

We have a singular advantage in our century that a location such as NeoPoet can exist. I believe there is also a distinct responsibility to nurture such a place (and others like it on the web). The poet has been writing for millennium without this privilege, without this ease of presentation. I believe there are likely more poets writing now and presenting on the internet than all poets previous held together, but that suggests perhaps there is even a greater need to take our presentation seriously.

If it is to be art, does it not deserve to be proofread? If it is to be art, does it not deserve to be arranged attractively “on the page”? If it is to be art, does it not deserve to be more than our best, ever and always elevated, even if we fail?

If we are to fell a tree let us seek the tallest and see to it that it falls within hearing of another.
We can do no less if we are to be artists.

Akouo~ “I hear.”

"[T]ease apart the threads [of the natural world] and the pattern vanishes. The design is in how the cloth-maker arranges the threads: this way and that, as fashion dictates. [...] To say something is meaningful is to say that that is how we arrange it so; how we comprehend it to be, and what is comprehended by you or I may not be by a cat, for example. If a tree falls in a park and there is no-one to hand, it is silent and invisible and nameless. And if we were to vanish, there would be no tree at all; any meaning would vanish along with us. Other than what the cats make of it all, of course."
William Fossett