O, people make all kinds of ridiculous excuses why they don't like
readings: the chairs / the smoke / the venue / the company. And yet, every
so often, you get a reader who can make the words move in the air - in a
different way to whatever it was you'd expected. And that makes it
worthwhile / makes me keep turning up to those dingy northern rooms
wherein poetry has small space in this part of the world. Happily, I don't
actually organise many readings these days, tho the reading centres I used
to run for many years - Colpitts and Morden Tower - are still going. I
just plant readers, cuckoo-style, in their nests, and have immense
sympathy for those who, like Lawrence, do the advertising / financial bit
/ seat arranging / programme wrestling / and then have to field the whines
of "I wouldve come but..." afterwards. I got to think that poetry reading
organisers, like vicars, where there to induce guilt in their potential
audiences...
But voiced poetry still works - for me - and works best in small space.
I've never heard a "big" reading I've been totally satisfied with - always
takes it away into something else, probably still valid in its own way,
but less direct, more shielded. As a musician I prefer 2-3 instruments/
voices in small space to the full Mahler job too. Damn difficult,
explaining to grants people - that was a really successful event, 30
people came and they all heard...
This isn't to pour cold water on all the other methods of producing poetry
readings. I can even see a place for the kind of crass, simplistic hype /
blurb that's been referred to, so long as no-one takes them too seriously
(though as listmembers know, I do believe headlines can kill). And new
venues, new types of performance, should be explored, obviously - not as
substitutes, but as extensions. Leading back to that voiced language in
the back room, the direct throat > ear contact which is where I come in.
Keep 'em coming, Organisers! Without you we'd all be - talking to
ourselves...
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Richard Caddel
Durham University Library, Stockton Rd., Durham DH1 3LY, UK
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 (0)191 374 3044 Fax: +44 (0)191 374 7481
WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dul0ric
"Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write."
- Basil Bunting
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