maybe the understanding could flourish that poetry was always an art to be seen and heard?
i could leave it at that . . but since it's clear that poetry has for several thousand years been (in many cultures) integrally implicated in the deveopments of performance, from early epic through the mead halls into contemporary rap . the non-western acceptance that poetry is to be enjoyed both through reading on the page and being explored off the page
what on earth is the problem here?
point-scoring is as addled a past-time in respect of poetry on the page as off the page
cris
On Oct 21, 2011, at 2:07 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> I've been following with interest the discussion that followed from
> Deborah's post and I am still balked at her initial question of how do you
> 'quantify quality' in 'spoken word'. I have visions of point-scoring, as in
> ski-jumping, high board diving. Or ice-skating. While, too, if I assume that
> 'spoken word artists' and 'performance poets' are, for the purposes of*poetry
> *, the same thing, what comes to mind is that in the best the poetry is only
> part of the act, it is really 'acts' we are talking about, so I don't see
> how the act can be evaluated or 'quantified' for 'quality' ('7.5? No, 6.0')
> without accepting that poetry is a part but not all of the material.
>
> My own experience has been that the best spoken word artists have really
> been comic acts that use poetry as a hinge. As such, the most useful way to
> see them is in comparison with other acts, with poetry or not. If, though,
> one insists that they be 'judged' or, better word, 'rated' by their poetry,
> then surely the claim is that they are 'poetry', not 'spoken word', and must
> be treated as such, so that comparisons are invited with other 'poems'.
>
> It isn't, of course, that there is anywhere an agreed standard on this
> invidious, noise-screening necessity, though there tends to be a (simmering)
> consensus (kind of) about poets who have had the good manners to be dead for
> a while, partly because the factions and alliances they fought among have
> also gone (permanently) underground.
>
> Where I do get difficulty is when I find performance poetry or spoken word
> being simultaneously presented as a) something that cannot be judged by the
> standards of 'page poetry' while being b) somehow superior to the aforesaid
> and c) worthy of being given the cultural role of the latter now considered
> predeceased and living dead.
>
> best
>
> Dave
>
>
> On 21 October 2011 00:02, POETRYETC automatic digest system <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> There are 15 messages totaling 1202 lines in this issue.
>>
>> Topics of the day:
>>
>> 1. Landscape: Towards Mitcham Junction from the south (5)
>> 2. Spoken Word (7)
>> 3. Periglis from the sea wall round The Meadow, low tide (3)
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is
> that none of it has tried to contact us."
> - Calvin & Hobbes
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