Great story Chris!
Here's my own tale . . .
I was asked to read at the launch evening for one of the annual
New Writing Scotland magazines, since I had work included.
Firstly, and most importantly I think, I decided to read the poems
from memory. No great hardship, since I knew them by heart
anyway -- and I'd been to countless readings where the poet
mumbled into a sheaf of notes. It *is* a performance -- reading
from memory means you can at least address the audience
directly, make a series of eye contacts, deliver the poem outwards.
So, no problem there. Slight snag though -- I have a mild stammer,
usually triggered by words which begin with a vowel. Also, I'd
decided I wanted to read a new poem which I'd written on the
subject, and which included a few 'impossible' words as examples,
i.e. 'innocence' and 'Icarus'. I have a terrible time with those.
Solution? I asked my sister along to the reading, and turned this
poem into a performance piece. For this poem alone, she stood
there beside me as I began . . . everyone wondering what was
going on. And as I recited, "Words like . .", she piped up "Icarus"
on cue. A double-act! It was also an interesting experiment in
distributing the words of the poem -- for the final difficult word,
I'd arranged for a friend of mine to say it loudly from within the
audience . . . . so there were words flying all over the place :-)
With this piece of theatre, and the fact that all the memorised
material was projected into the eyes of the audience, it turned
out to be the best reading I've done . . . and, as I was told after-
wards, one of the best readings the organisers had ever heard.
So, if a stammering fool like myself can do it, anyone can do it.
Don't read -- deliver. A reader's attention should be on the
audience as much as the audience's attention is on the reader.
Andy
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