Jane has written a brilliant piece here - entirely opening up the fault
lines in British Poetry and society.
In diatribe mode I'd agree with John Muckle's response today. Yet, Jane
highlights the problem: the divorce between 'page' and 'performance;' the
separation between 'serious' poetry ('serious' being historically cerebal)
versus 'entertainment' (the more visceral voice poetry she here writes
against but also promotes). Jane's is the dichotomy that is British Poetry
(sic).
That noses are turned up across the spectrum calling itself 'poetry'
excludes. Part of my work is with young adults, not to 'enable' them to have
access to poetry and the arts but to utterly destroy the word 'enable' and
give young adults the means to take control of their means of expression. We
are terrible to our children and young adults in the UK - because so many on
high are trying to stuff our voices in the young, rather than allowing them
the means to realise their own. The contradictions in Jane's missive reflect
a class ability to dismiss the means by which those 'below' can find the
means of expression 'high' art/poetry pretends to own for itself.
The semi-democratisation of the arts in these islands is less than sixty
years old and utterly under threat from Blair cut backs. We really COULD be
adults and open the gates to all and everything people want to call poetry.
IF NOT, I suggest the worthies on this List actually try to define - What Is
Poetry?
Jane thinks its origin is on the page. In the Renaissance this was true!
Prosody is a human construct not a bloody religion! Utterance is first and
all; the written is then a record and after a means, like drawing, to plan.
Iambic Pentameters was planned speech for The Court - Shakespeare so
brilliantly played out between the classes in his society. You can hunt down
all forms and all rules in poetry - and you can write within them,
transform - or chuck in the bin. In attacking Slams and Performance Poetry
per se, Jane's concern isn't History (that wonderful living resource) but
Tradition. But what Tradition?
I love Ted Hughes' poetry. I'm nuts about Shelley.
What I really, really miss from This List are references to ground-breaking
poets like Bob Cobbing. Cobbing, and all the brilliant people associated
with the New Poetries, put together Mouth, Hands, Movement. However then
represented graphically or in text, this 'living' poetry was and is it. I'm
sure that for these poets, the cerebral/the thinking was the means/the
planning/retrospection to make physical and live.
To divorce performance poetry from 'serious' poetry is a fundamental
mistake; to deny young people control of their means of expression deserves
a Poetry ASBO.
Rupert x
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jane Holland'" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 8:17 PM
Subject: Re: talking in greek
I agree with Tim about Slams and performance poetry in general. Which will
seem strange, I guess, coming from someone who runs a daily blog promoting
that area of poetry (Poets On Fire). But while I always enjoy the buzz of
live poetry, I'm very much aware, as a 'page' poet (make of that what you
will!) who frequently performs at these sort of events, that the vast
majority of open mic and Slam performers are not even attempting to be
'poets' as most people would reasonably understand the term, but are more
intent on amusing and entertaining the audience, which usually involves
provoking a strong reaction from them - hilarity, disgust, fascinated horror
etc. This, coupled with the possibility of achieving a certain notoriety in
performance circles, plus increasing success at getting grants and paid gigs
on the back of their performances, encourages them to continue with the same
sort of material and means that young or new poets watching them will
probably emulate what they see as being successful and begin to write or
perform 'poetry' and spoken word in the same idiom.
This might not be an important development if 'serious' poetry - by which I
mean poetry that is informed about its own history as a written rather than
an orally delivered artform and is making an effort to engage with that
history and hopefully add something interesting or provocative to it - was
in a healthy condition, being bought and read and talked about at all levels
of society. But we all know that's not happening, nor is it ever likely to
be. Yet you only need to visit a popular open mic poetry evening to see its
popularity, the cross-section that it draws in and the strength of the
audience reaction. In the face of such a challenge, the more difficult 'page
poetry' may get pushed aside, with even fewer people than now making an
effort to get to grips with it, to read or write it for their own pleasure
or purposes.
The results of this gradual shift into poetry as a pub'n'club-associated
leisure activity are becoming clearer to me all the time. Basically, many of
the young performers I see out and about (some of them potentially talented
as page poets) clearly prefer the applause and the quick adrenalin fix of
the comic or political spoken word poem, and because of this may be - as Tim
suggests - diverted away from poetry as art into poetry as entertainment.
Other thoughts on this?
Jane
--- janeholland.co.uk
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