Hi David,
glad to oblige. Poetry is clearly not only a form printed on a page. That's
just plain silly as an assertion and shows complete disregard for traditions
let alone contemporary practice. Writing is a trace and that trace might be
phonographic, video-graphic, at least, to boot. Writing is a practice.
Poetry is a practice.
Writing is performative. Communicative anguage both performs and is
performed through the practice of writing. Why is writing therefore not a
performative practice, I don't see a problem?
However, Elin Diamond writes that 'performance is always a doing and a thing
done' and that puts it as well as i might. Performance is a through of
something. Performance is present in every aspect of writing. It's as simple
as that.
Yes there are 'live', witnessed performances. There are pieces written in
performance. We now have the idea of indirect testimony, on tape and CD and
web-archives and suchlike.
But I can also hear one of your 'problematicise' flushes coming on re
'performative' and 'performativity'.
Well they're both in usage and have been for some 50 years. You are fine not
to like them. But then usage wins out. How does 'bad' ever come to signify
'good'. A touch of those barbarians in your closet perhaps?
love and letters
cris
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