Deborah,
Seriously, and not at all meaning to be personally combative, but when you
speak of _this_ in your last line, my only question is _what?_
What has been written here is an array, I suppose, but not just of
perceptions. Some of it has been closely and reasonably argue, albeit
informally -- which I prefer. One after another, it has been argued, I
think convincingly, that your terminology is deeply flawed.
What we have been talking about intensely is, along one vector, that we do
not know what you are speaking of.
It seems to me, as I have said, that you are speaking of the whole of
Poetry when it is at least intended for performance.
Please clarify.
L
On Wed, October 26, 2011 02:05, Deborah Stevenson wrote:
> Dave, and in fact everyone. It really excites me to see everyone
> discussing so intensely and I am very sorry for my silence. I have been
> working in and out of the country and on top of that my laptop exploded!
> Hence my silence.
> But when it is a sensible hour I will be reading everything properly and
> getting back to you.
>
> But for the mean time, thank you and please carry on discussion because
> you are teaching me so much about the array of perceptions out there. And
> also, that I am not the only one with this on the brain.
>
> Will be back soon.
> Deborah
>
>
> On 22 October 2011 17:07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>> absolutely bang on, Dave. Particularly the last para
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 7:07 AM, David Bircumshaw <
>> [log in to unmask]
>>> 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
>>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>>> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
>>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
>>> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
>>> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>>
>>
>
-----
UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
----
Lawrence Upton
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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