Chris:

Yes, performance IS present in the writing (and I'd say, construction:
thinking here of Ian Hamilton Finley's constructions), since there's always
an audience, even if only for those lowly "multitudes within us. These are
the first "audiences".  Yes (gasp!) these are the focus groups...the first
witnesses long before a piece is presented (either in print or live) before
an audience.
> Hi Douglas,
>
> the key point, and i'll go blu ein the e-space trying to make it, is that
> performance is present throughout writing. Writing and performance are
damn
> near inseparable. So, the debates between 'performance poets' are
> interesting but secondary. These debates too often retain the sense of
> performance as a secondary or less serious mode of poetic practicec. Not
> that those who do it take it any less seriously perhaps, but certainly the
> literati will.
>
> 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.
>
> There are those who forward themselves through the slams. Some of them are
> great 'live', some less so. Some translate better to the page than others.
> Of the better I'd say poets such as Jean Breeze are worth reading on a
page.
> But they ought to not feel that the page is a validating space. They do
and
> that's where they make their mistake. What not be 'live' and stay 'live'
and
> have one's work be oral ephemera and what's wrong with that.

Here I'd also forward Jerome Sala and Jaap Blonk and Robert Ashley.

> I talk about appropriate contexts. A page, a screen, a small room,  . . .
>
> I also like producing versions for differing purposes and differing
> audiences. So a piece might take several differing forms and evolve
through
> time and differing readerships / audiences / witnesses . .

I can understand what you are saying here since for years I've felt myself
making two forms of poems: those being deployed as a "quiet address"
(page/print) and those being deployed as 'public address". Rarely are there
hybrids.


 > lots of dots
>
> dot dot dot
>
> love and love
> cris

Best, Gerald