Well, yeah, sure, but just because this was such a hair-raising event,
jesse, doesn't then mean that 'ordinary' poetry readings can't be a
pleasure. And I'll defend sound poetry as one kind of performance that
can be very exciting. Certainly, among the finest poetry readings I've
attended, are the performances of The Four Horsemen -- and that
sentence betrays the problem. Is it a reading or a performance that we
want. that we went to see/hear? With the Horsemen, an audience would go
in knowing that four people were going to do a number of strange things
with their voices, some little playlets, perhaps, even a sing-along of
sorts maybe. All providing both food for thought & a visceral
experience.
Most people on this list know how great I think Phyllis Webb is as a
poet, but she is (or was, as she no longer does readings) one of the
great readers, although in fact she read quietly with a great degree of
understatement. But she had a most seductive voice, & totally
understood her own poetic rhythms, the use of line-breaks, etc. I have
heard her read poems I had practically memorized, & new poems I had
never heard before, & in both cases her articulation was so clear I
'knew' them as I listened in a way I could never do just on the page
(or, maybe, because her poetry works on the page to evoke how they will
sound).
Then there are poets who read their poems with such disregard for their
form I just give up. I mean I can 'hear' the power of the line breaks &
they totally ignore them?!
But I go to readings for pleasure not pain, & usually get it.... & not
just from 'narrative.' Sometimes, indeed, from what some at least would
call 'the 'experimental.' much of which I do find exciting....
Doug
On 6-Mar-05, at 6:07 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Was in a Ger pitched in Fukuoka and was given by a guest Mongolian
> throat-singer reciting parts of a long epic about some warlord prince
> and his horses. The man accompanied himself on a small three-stringed
> fiddle with a horse's head carved in the top and I swear I heard the
> horses gallop in battle and the hawk he sang about flying in the winter
> sky. I didn't understand a thing he said, but my Mongolian students
> translated the poem and my consequent greetings and thanks to him for
> his amazing recital.
>
> I've heard both Heaney and Creely read and I have to admit they weren't
> very inspiring compared to this.
>
> And for the latest, really experimental stuff, I suspect that only
> juggling swords and swallowing flames would make them anything but
> snore-inspiring.
>
> Narrative and myth and skill on the part of the poet is what keeps us
> on
> the edge of our seats. Oh yes, I've forgotten the sheer freakishness
> of sound poetry. That draws our attention in the same way that the
> sound of a rabbit attacked by ferrets would. I recommend a few forays
> into the realm of sound poetry for Mairead if she's not sure what to do
> to keep her audience interested. Jess
>
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
care to be more
precise about whatever
it is you are
saying, I said
Bill Manhire
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