You are going to be the best prepared first time reader ever!
Tell us how it goes
all best
SallyE
on 2/9/04 9:09 am, Merritt, Matt - Leic. Mercury at
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Hi Sarah,
> That all sounds like really good advice, especially the making eye contact,
> speaking slower than you think, and looking confident. I'll try to remember
> it.
> Best wishes,
> Matt
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Sarah Willans
> Sent: 01 September 2004 09:35
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: More on poetry readings
>
>
> For information on how Internet email incoming to the Northcliffe group is
> handled, please visit http://nngi/results.asp?key=it7`1008200413324052300
>
> We recently had a poetry reading workshop at the Plough led by Sara-Jane
> Arbury, a performance poet and actress who toured recently in 'Staying
> Alive' (a performance based on the excellent Bloodaxe anthology of the same
> name). It was aimed at building confidence, and what she did worked very
> well. Anyone who runs, or is part of, a writers' group might like to try the
> same thing.
>
> After the usual preliminaries, she split us up into pairs and gave each pair
> a couple of stanzas of Auden's 'Miss Gee' to work on, coming round to help
> each pair individually. We then read the whole poem through as though to an
> audience, each pair presenting their stanzas in their own way, and
> afterwards discussed our individual approaches and how well they'd worked. A
> lot of practical points were made about standing square to the audience and
> not fidgeting, looking up and making eye contact, printing your poems out on
> separate sheets so that it's easy to shuffle the correct one to the front,
> speaking slower than you think - and never, never apologising for your work!
> She told us that we should go out there, look the audience in the eye and
> say (inwardly, of course), 'This is my poem, I'm proud of it, and you're
> going to listen to it!'
>
> We had all brought along a poem of our own to work on, and next she got us
> to read these to her - all at the same time. It sounds odd, but if you've
> ever read one of your own poems in public you will know how extraordinarily
> hard it can be just to get started, and doing it like this 'broke the ice'
> without any one of us being the center of attention (except for the chap
> who'd brought along a four-page epic, and was still reading long after the
> rest of us had finished). After this, we took it in turns to read our poem
> to the group, and then we read it again into a microphone. We all got a CD
> of the day's poems too keep.
>
> It was a basic course - we didn't talk much about the content of the poems,
> though we did talk a bit about introductions. Afterwards, everyone agreed
> that it had really helped to boost their confidence, and we'd picked up some
> very useful, practical tips, too. It was very obvious that if you can at
> least look confident, however you feel, you're half way to convincing the
> audience of the merit of your poem. That's mainly a question of getting your
> body language right.
>
> Good luck Matt!
>
> Sarah
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