>I agree with David that chris's use of language verges on
>the grotesque. But last night I was at the Third Thursday
>in the month poetry readings in Bath, and Mary Taylor performed
>two of her performance poems whereas everyone else employed
>"Written poems". I dont think Mary's poems would be the same
>on the page as she intersperses sung fragments from negro
>spirituals. You would really need to make a video to do her
>justice. There is definitely a place in poetry for both
>the 'performance poem' and the 'written poem'. The question
>is how to preserve the 'performance poem' for future generations
>which paper or computer does very well for text. Or do we
>want to. Perhaps it is a transitory beast.

An interesting point, Douglas, & although i can sympathise with David,
since I also perform sound poetry both in solo & duo settings, I like what
it does. I would point to some complexities of the whole situation, though.
In Canada, we have a number of 'performance poets,' many of whom come
across to me as almst stand-up comics. There's Sherri D Wilson, who can be
vey funny, with her sexy jokey rhyming couplets, but I confess that I can't
read them on the page, they are so weak, the end-rhymes end-stopped &
pbvious. Yet, she is a fine performer for many audiences, who applaud &
hoot, & cheer her on, & she has performed around the world. But, yeah, I'd
say she is best tasted/tested in person not on the page. On the other hand,
Pauld Dutton, one of the finest sound poets around, refuses to say that the
kind of ting she & her cohorts do is anything like sound poetry, which is
also a performance art, but far more theoretically sophisticated, I would
argue (Chris? yes?), & far more interested in exploring the 'grounds' of
physical sounding in the possibilities of the human voice, as such. Yet, i
would also argue that it is a kind of poetry, is based for its
practitioners on a poetics in ways I'm not sure the performance poets (the
slams etc) tryto think through.

Chris? What would you say?

Doug

Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

        the heart in its cage stands up
        desiring fine instruments

                        Michele Leggott