cris, I share your dislike of repeating the reading of poems
largely because, as I phrased it ages back, of the risk of doing a greatest
hits show
& by that I do not apply it to only those with a big reputation
it's the attitude - find out what works best with an audience and keep doing
it
i am largely safe by not having much in the way of even small hits and by
writing a fair amount, though one also needs to avoid writing the same kind
of poems all the time... but there are poems i want to return to because i
find things in them still -
if the poem performed is a poem too then versions can include rereading
AND another thing to do is to alter the selection because part of a poem's
meaning is made by what other poems are presented with it
the worry about repetition may also apply to improvisers - if they improvise
in the same way again and again
I saw abAna last night - David Toop, Paul Burwell & Bob Cobbing, doing the
latest in Cobbing' undeclared festival of anniveraries - their 30th
anniversary
And there they were doing a whole load of Cobbinmg's stuff from that far
back
& one of the many great pleasures of it was the degree to which the pieces
have shifted, hardly surprisingly; but there are those who would pride
themselves on having not shifted
Toop started off with a flute but that was the only similarity
he wasn't playing the same....... and then some brilliant use of machines
which didnt exist then
I was too near to Burwell and Cobbing to hear Toop separably enough to say
more
Burwell's playing has changed - it's even busier I'd say... I've heard it
getting busier, or so it seems to me
it's become tremendously accomplished and a lot of busyness appears to me to
be him undercutting the accomplishment
One could say this isa by-product of constant performance and the accruing
experience, but there are those who seem not to learn
& Cobbing... his voice has changed, age is taking it, but he shifts his
techniques to accommodate that; he finds new things in the texts...
----- Original Message -----
From: "cris cheek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 21 June 2002 18:48
Subject: Re: "This 'performative' poem"
| Hi David,
|
| i can certainly go with your wish to not repeat readings. One way is
through
| versions as i've said. But i basically dislike ever reading anything more
| than once and found readings a good way of putting me on my metal and
| preparing new work. Then i started getting 'bookings' with such frequency
| that my utput couldn't keep up. So i stopped doing readings. Now i might
try
| the odd one again. Curious, it's more complicated than that but
|
| love and love
| cris
|
|