that's a terrific question John. you're quite right to point up the
history of Performance Writing in this and many other respects
i have no doubt that as Robert says this stuff is being circulated
strongly in a number of situations . . . many of those emanating in
one way or another from the spheres of influence and productive
tensions between Cobbing and dsh and Mr Finlay
with other important figures in the UK such as Tom Edmonds, Tom
Phillips, Ken Cox, Paula Claire, Lily Greenham and John
Furnival . . . as the older egernation
much of what has paid any attention to the work of these poets shows
its influences in other way
_____________
poetry does certainly from time to time pose serious challenges to
conventions of reading
that's one of its most extraordinary and valuable assets as an art
form, for me at least
and i agree about a slight reticence with respect of silence
i often refer rather blandly to Christopher Middleton's idea of the
endophonic and the exophonic voice
(the former does not leave the body as sound waves, the latter does)
so the interplays between melody and rhythm and noise are pertinent
here too . . . both "on" and "off" the page
a page
a screen
xx
cc
On Oct 25, 2009, at 1:13 PM, John Hall wrote:
> And the visual and material qualities of writing were from the
> outset part
> of the conception of 'performance writing' as it has been
> developed, taught
> and researched at Dartington, as implied by cris. This is
> (deliberately) not
> the same as identifying a specific genre of poetry as 'visual poetry',
> though. And isn't there a line of visual writing that aims at a
> meditational
> quiet (I was about to say 'silence') and another that celebrates its
> association with performances that are at least sonic (and possibly
> very
> loud) if not also gestural? An issue for the academies may be that the
> reading methods that came to define 'English Literature' were not well
> equipped for dealing with anything other than texts for which the
> white page
> is an ideal or metaphysical space.
>
> John
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