Poemage is a visualization system designed to support close reading of poems via revelation and exploration of their complex sonic structures. The authors improvised adaptations of this software into 3D interactive environments, experimenting with several ways to visualize “sonic depth” in poetic texts. Not only did this process lead to intensified cross-modal literary experiences, it challenged the authors’ thinking about commonly held values pertaining to poetry, text analysis and information visualization, prompting them to experiment with new practices in each field.