All over Latin America. In the Southern Cone and in Cuba the singers
are known as payadores. Mostly they compose decimas--ten line
octosyllabic stanzas. Often there are contests, singers throwing
stanzas at each other. In Mexico there's also a tradition of
improvising couplets, or drawing on the vast store already at hand in
the culture, the tunr passed around thus between many singers.
There are now organized payada contests in Argentina and Uruguay,
with actual prizes.
Mark
At 05:32 PM 6/29/2009, you wrote:
>There is such a tradition in Spanish, however, at least
>in Puerto Rico, where I lived for four years once upon
>a time. The practitioners were just ordinary guys with
>a talent, as I recall, and were much in demand at fiestas
>and such, where they could hold forth for some time
>on topics/subjects given to them--and in rhymed stanzas
>(much easier, of course, in Spanish than in English).
>
>Hal
>
>"Those who cast the ballots decide nothing.
>Those who count the ballots decide everything."
> --Joseph Stalin
>
>
>Halvard Johnson
>================
>[log in to unmask]
>http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home
>http://entropyandme.blogspot.com
>http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com
>http://www.hamiltonstone.org
>
>
>
>
>
>On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Robin Hamilton <
>[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Point taken, dave.
> >
> > I didn't quite mean to suggest that extempore poetry doesn't exist, more
> > that it's not part of the English (language) *tradition.
> >
> > One problem is that it's ephemeral -- if you extemporise a poem, unless
> > it's promptly written down afterwards (or tape-recorded), it's lost.
> >
> > This would apply even, I'd guess, to orally composed poetry, which would
> > have to be repeated by the composer several times, so no longer
> extemporary,
> > before it was "fixed".
> >
> > In contrast, it seems to be, or at least is presented in literary texts as,
> > part of both the Old Irish/Welsh and Norse/Scandinavian literary
> traditions.
> >
> > Perhaps it's a case that the more demanding and constrained the poetic
> > norms are, the more there's a counter-movement towards extemporisation, or
> > at least celebrating extemporisation.
> >
> > Dunno.
> >
> > Robin
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Bircumshaw" <
> > [log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 9:14 PM
> > Subject: Re: Apology for swords
> >
> >
> >
> > Rob
> >> When I was young in Brum there was a mentally and physically disabled chap
> >> called Mark who used to wander about the streets talking to anyone who'd
> >> listen in rhyming couplets. They were certainly his own and extemporised.
> >> He was a near dwarf with discoloured looking skin and a huge
> >> disproportionate head. It was hard to say whether he was consciously
> >> making
> >> the rhymes, the patter seemed to be his verbal consciousness, I got the
> >> impression he was his own automatic voice.The verses were often about a
> >> person who was strange and suffered. But this person, himself, was quite
> >> clearly someone else to his narratives. Unlike rappers, they weren't
> >> ego-centred, the unpleasantness of much rap is possibly uncomfortably
> >> close
> >> to a truth about the origins of poetry, but one can travel far from a
> >> starting point, yes?
> >>
> >
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