"...The bibliophile poer at home, detached, an observer The performance
poet a participant. This won't wash"
I concede that one can be either detatched or engaged in either circumstance
as an audience. However, the speaker at a debate, I feel, engages in a
different experience to that of the journalist. As a writer on the web and
as a performer I know what audience awareness means in each case and that is
a totally different experience as far as interaction goes.
The audience of a live event forms part of the event, both subliminally and
during interaction after the performance, that gives this form a differing
immediacy and intimacy.
Please don't think I'm sidelining the intimacy of relationship with text,
I'm just making a case for a performer being recognised as a bringer of a
rich dynamic......one dynamic is certainly a potentially heightened
involvement of a kind that is so real (and also a group experience, let's
not forget) that some people cannot bear the intimacy of live performance.
Admittedly, though, I often detest hearing poems that I have met on the
page, performed or trotted out on audio collections. Often the poets
themselves bring nothing to their own work in performance, and in fact kill
it.
Actors and actresses can also devour the texts and submerge them completely
into there own perfooooormance. Sometimes text is best left alone to allow
it to sing.
St Paul was renowned (allegedly) for being a disappointing speaker, but his
letters made quite an impact.
Sarah
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mills, Billy [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 09 September 1999 17:18
> To: 'Sarah de Nordwall'; [log in to unmask]; british-poets
> Subject: RE: Performance and Pop ups
>
> Sarah
>
> You write
>
> >To say that poetry and performance poetry are interchangeable is a bit
> like
> >comparing reading a newspaper to attending a political debate.
>
> Which seems to imply that performance is more involved, more there, more
> real somehow. The bibliophile poer at home, detached, an observer The
> performance poet a participant. This won't wash
>
> Billy
>
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