An interesting interview, Richard, & neat to actually 'see' you.
As to your response to my note, I think you're probably right. But it's
been an interesting 2 days here. 4 readings in 2 days. the first was by
our Writer-in-residence, Karen Solie, from her forthcoming book. Most
of the audience knew her, but still we generally kept quiet & she
rambled on about the poems & read them. Then we bantered with her at
the end a bit. This was at the university. That evening, at a bar, I
was doing Sound Poetry, with a student filling in for Stephen Scobie,
who was too ill to make it; so I did some solo sound poems &, with him,
some duo pieces. These get applause. And lots of laughter & snorts
during the performance. Yesterday, the students in the 3rd & 4th year
creative writing classes read their poetry to an audience made up of
them & any interested others (friends. some faculty, others). They
talked to each other as they went about reading, & there was lots of
laughter & applause after (& often during) each short reading. In the
evening, a Canadian poet, visiting Edmonton with her English poet
husband read at a bookstore, to an audience mainly made up of old
friends, so the poets talked a lot between poems, & had an appreciative
audience, with occasional ums, & yeses, but mainly quiet. And though
everyone was with them, since each read for about 45 minutes, it did go
on a bit & tire the audience out.
In other words, yes, there are differences, even here, between readings
depending on the sites, the audiences, the kind etc.
But seldom an audience/performer dynamic like the one you describe for
'Persia'...
Doug
On 14-Apr-05, at 8:36 AM, Richard Jeffrey Newman wrote:
> I have been meaning to post this to the list for a while, but am only
> getting around to it now. There is an interview with me about my new
> book, a
> translation, Selections from Saadi's Gulistan, on the Iranian website
> Payvand.com: http://www.payvand.com/news/05/mar/1209.html.
>
> For more information about the book, you can check out my website,
> www.richardjnewman.com or the publisher's website, www.gsp-online.org.
>
> Richard
>
>
> _________________________
> Richard Jeffrey Newman
> Associate Professor, English
> Nassau Community College
> One Education Drive
> Garden City, NY 11530
> O: (516) 572-7612
> F: (516) 572-8134
> [log in to unmask]
> www.ncc.edu
>
>
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Hand and mind
and heart one
ground to walk on,
field to plough.
Robert Creeley
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