Yes, I've heard Creeley and Duncan read too, Doug, and thanks for reminding
me of those readings. The one by Creeley was especially important for me
personally, opening up a world of possibilities in poetry for me. That was
around 1965 or so, as I recall.
On Thursday, May 21, 2015, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yes, to a lot of this.
>
> bpnichol was a terrific reader of his work, & let hearers her the rhythmic
> play of his lines so well, among other things. I agree that you can her
> nuances you can't always see, too.
>
> I only heard Creeley & Duncan red once, but that was incredibly important
> to me. Duncan's hands marking time, especially the pauses in his poems.
> Creeley first turning a huge hall into an intimate space, then offering a
> quiet sure sense of time & line breaks as meaning (i confess that i felt
> that night that hearing him was like it might be going to hear the elder
> Yeats, that sense of being in the presence of a great old one).
>
> I'd say that with some readers. they offer the same sense of silence as
> rhythm as Miles Davis said about playing music, how the notes are only half
> of it. And though I never heard Olson live, that video of his reading
> Letter 27 (I think) taught me so much about he meant his poems to sound in
> our ears.
>
> Doug
>
> On May 21, 2015, at 10:18 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > There are poets who seem to promise much via the page; but one hears them
> > and realises that it was / is a mirage, however goodit may have been in
> > their heads. Others let themselves down in performance.
> >
> > Just because someone lets themselves down in performance does not
> > invalidate performance in general.
> >
> > For me, and I say it no more strongly than that, the written poem is a
> > score for or transcription of performance. At this late date it may not
> > seem so: poetry has come to so many of us as pages in a book.... But
> silent
> > reading is a relatively recent phenomenon
> >
> > It may be that some performances block reception of some aspects of the
> > poem. So it goes. Chap started talking to me this morning and I responded
> > because he seemed open and well-intentioned, though I couldn't really
> make
> > out what he was saying; and I was some way into the conversation before I
> > fully realised our topic.
> >
> > I may sometimes really wish that I could have grasped the full text of
> > something... but I do not accept there are any absolutes to be received
> > unsullied by earthly matters.
> >
> > I'd dearly love to hear the voices of Housman and Flecker read some of
> > their poems - I could make a little list - not because they are "great"
> but
> > because they made poems, lines often, from which I have learned,
> > experiencing great pleasure, and would like to learn more.
> >
> > Someone remarked tome recently how overwhelming they found the experience
> > of reading Bunting. Well, I heard the man read the man read several
> times -
> > in the same room as him - and that too was overwhelming. I value it; but
> I
> > am not sure how much I learned that I have applied successfully to my own
> > practice, apart from the bit about the waste paper basket! But nothing
> > directly from the hearing. That was the best, maybe, legal high I have
> > known; and that's all I can say
> >
> > It might be that some including AEH and JEF read their rather dully and
> or
> > incompetently. We have been offered infamous examples of that already;
> but
> > that's the way it is. I'd rather have the information than the illusory
> hit.
> >
> > I have written somewhere a line about hearing the words of Vergil as he
> > spoke them (forget please how poor my first century bce Latin is. to the
> > point where this desire is laughable) though I am unsure if I nicked it
> > from someone else - I think it may be a variation on Forster's "to see
> the
> > hills as Aelfred saw them" from 'The Machine stops' - and that reflects
> for
> > me the nature of poetry - a time-based art, with books at best ruins
> shored
> > against entropy
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask] <javascript:;>
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2
> (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> There is no life that does not rise
> melodic from scales of the marvelous.
>
> To which our grief refers.
>
> Robert Duncan.
>
--
:: from the desk of Halvard Johnson ::
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