cris,
I don't think you satisfactorily answered Roger's point below - "when
you use your word performance to embrace all of poetical practice,
'performance' becomes meaningless." Simply saying that your
overarching use of the word is good because it stops the term from
being looked upon as derisory is, well, a bit tame. And of course
there are 'differing kinds of performance' - who would disagree with
that? Roger's point reminds me of a similar problem I have with the
notion of discourse - if all that we say/write about reality is
'discourse' then discourse loses any particular meaning, etc.
So, because of the above reason, plus a few others, i too am having
trouble with this idea that writing a poem is in itself a performance
- I can't make up my mind about this - on one level I really don't
care - if such a thing is 'true' then what does it change? Anything?
Then again, there is a small part of me that thinks it might actually
be a rather stupid thing to say - but it can only be stupid if it
matters, just as it can only be important if it matters. Does it matter?
I am also having a problem with your question to Roger "in what way is
what we find on the page not a notation for eye and ear?" So it's a
performance AND it's a notation??? Can it be both? Is this too many
questions? Am i being picky? If you are using the word notation in the
same way, say, as musical notation, then I think you are wrong.
Anyway, this is interesting, if it matters.
Cheers
Tim A.
On 28 Oct 2011, at 12:30, cris cheek wrote:
> Hi Roger,
>
> i am being boring actually, because i've said this same sort of
> thing for years and i'm still alone in thinking it.
>
> i'm not sure how much i can add. I don't think that some cultures
> are better than others at all, in terms of poetry. I am saying that
> poetry performs both on and off the page and i am seeking to blur
> that old chestnut of a binary held up by scholars such as Walter
> Ong, between orality and literacy. Poetry was a complex activity
> from the get go and much of its history has occurred between sits of
> performance. Those whole skeins of poetic history that you refer to
> are, i agree, utterly fascinating in their complex. In many many
> instances that complexity involves a sense of voice that does not
> leave the body and that voice that does leave the body (the voice in
> the head as one reads what is on the page and the voice in one's
> head when one listens to a poem read by another and the voice one
> produces when one reads a poem out loud - one written by you as well
> as one written by another but being rewritten by you in those
> moments et cetera). These are all, i contest, performances of the
> poem.
>
> I do go further and assert, at least in my more oring moment, that
> the composition of a poem is itself a performance. Rather than
> rendering the word performance meaningless it seems to me to remove
> the word performance from being a potentially derisory term for
> poetry and instead suggests that there are differing kinds of
> performance. Those differences, those complexities, those skeins,
> allow for conversations about performance to take on more subtlety.
>
> Maybe i can reframe this as a question to you . . in what ways does
> poetry not perform on the page and / or if that is not clear
> enough . in what way is what we find on the page not a notation for
> eye and ear . and more besides???
>
>
> cris
>
>
> On Oct 28, 2011, at 2:46 AM, Roger Day wrote:
>
>> No you're not being boring but you are eliding whole skeins of
>> interesting
>> history and culture to homogenize it to your own particular view
>> point. IMO,
>> you are ascending olympia one step at a time and using that old
>> punk excuse
>> to pretend you're not.
>>
>> Clearly, you think that some cultures are 'better' than others when
>> it comes
>> to this touchy subject, otherwise you wouldn't have make that
>> remark about
>> 'non-western' - I'm interested in hearing on what criteria you come
>> to this
>> conclusion.
>>
>> I'm reminded of Terry Eagleton's remark about 'ideology' - if you
>> think that
>> eveything is based around ideology, then the word 'ideology' becomes
>> meaningless. I think that when you use your word performance to
>> embrace all
>> of of poetical practice, 'performance' becomes meaningless ...
>>
>> Regards
>> Roger
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