Hi Doug
my only problem in repeating my poems is that all the 'charge' goes into the
first reading. I can re-do them but it's never the same, so many variables
feed into this, which bears on my point about the emphasis on performance,
it's not reproducible, can't be carried around. As for other matters, I have
to say I find cris's terminology verges on cant: 'extreme voice work',
'vocal improvisers', 'non-verbal communication' etc etc. I'm not denying
these things might have an artistic validity but whatever they are they are
not poetry. As the cultural space 'allowed' to our Cinderella art is so
small I do resent these invasions. I'm not going to say more, else I could
get quite bitter.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2002 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: "This poem"
Hi Chris
I take all your points as valid/
>When it comes to sound poetries there is a n utterly serious body of poetic
>practices that is based in an appreciation of vocal grain and vocal
>incidentals and 'non-verbal' communication right throughout the twentieth
>century - at least that long a tradition. Some streams are nourished by
>nonsense, some by Artaud and more recent extreme voice work (i'm thinking
of
>conections to Diamanda Galas, Meredith monk, Shelley Hirsch, Phil Minton .
.
>.) and that's where the vocal improvisers and sound-text composers are
often
>shaking hands over the boundaries. I'm think of Dutton's use of khoumi and
>Monk's use of Inuit mouth-mouth rapid exchange - the term escapes me but
i
>can look it up.
I understand this, although in Canada, people like me learned most from bp
& also all Four Horsemen. Possibilities.
>
'appropriate contexts' are important. I find that as a remnant bibliophile
I still want to be able to read for myself, not just listen, & often find
that the kind of performance poetry often described by thatb term simply
hasn't the linguistic depth to capture my ear for long. But, yeah, why
shouldn't they enjoy what they do, the audience response, & not worry about
print?
I confess, here to David, that I like my own poems enough to find something
in them worth repeating aloud when I read in different times & places
(ideally finding something new in them as I do so). So I don't in any way
denigrate their 'seriousness' in doing so. At least in my own mind, of
course.
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
There is no real
world, my friends.
Why not, then
let the stars
shine in our bones?
Robert Kroetsch
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