I must admit that when I heard Ted Hughes had died my immediate reaction
was - "Now I shall never hear him read."
There is an unarguable extra dimension given by the voice and personality of
the poet. But I haven't yet sussed out if there's any permanent effect on
the poetry in those sad cases where the poet happens to be a bad reader of
his/her own work.
Do you think a really bad reader would cause anything to seep into the work
from the earliest stages of writing? It seems quite likely that a good
reader would get his/her own voice into the language on the page, almost in
spite of him/herself. I mean physical voice here, not 'voice' -- breathing,
word-handling, sentence construction, etc -- so the converse might well be
the case.
As Allen Ginsberg put it - " To read Shelley's poem ['Ode to the West Wind']
aloud is to breathe his breath."
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "MC Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: What famous poets have you met or seen read in person?
> What a wonderful testament, Alison--so modest in tone
> yet giving all those poets their due. Although I agree
> with you that such literati have little to do with
> celebrity poetry, I'm glad you chose to share your
> memories of current (dead or alive) poets. They
> deserve your honoring and that of the rest of us.
> Thank you for the gesture.
>
> Candice
>
> I must have died alone
> A long long time ago
> (David Bowie)
>
>
>
> --- Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Aha! Cue shameless namedropping.
>>
>> Famous Seamus once fixed me with an eagle eye and
>> demanded to know
>> where the name "Croggon" came from. I shared a taxi
>> with Anne Carson
>> in London. I had tea and buns with Jeremy Prynne on
>> a William Morris
>> carpet. I have enjoyed a number of hyper
>> conversations with John
>> Kinsella. Les Murray has slept on my floor and once
>> drove me to
>> Melbourne from Canberra. I went betting on horses
>> with John Forbes and
>> won on every race, so I bought him lunch. I'm sure
>> I've said hello to
>> other famous people.
>>
>> Some of these encounters mean more to me than
>> others, some of these
>> people I am very fond of. But meeting poets without
>> the headline
>> cachet but who are nevertheless brilliant has meant
>> just as much to
>> me. Sometimes much more.
>>
>> (I would have liked to hear Basil Bunting).
>>
>> I don't think celebrity has much to do with poetry.
>>
>> As one does, I interviewed a number of celebs when I
>> was a journalist.
>> The only person who ever reduced me to total
>> tongue-tied awkwardness
>> was Graeme Chapman from Monty Python (to me, he was
>> a real legend). He
>> was incredibly kind to me in a way I have never
>> forgotten. But he was
>> also a paralysingly shy person in his youth.
>>
>> All the best
>>
>> Alison
>>
>> --
>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>>
>
>
>
>
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