Ah, you are cross, Tim.
It's interesting that, that slams work thus (a bit like our CBC poetry
contests, in which people also write to a theme).
On the other hand, this brilliant PhD student wrote a thesis on Spoken
Word performance, in which she made a strong argument for the way many
in that field do challenge stereotypes, play a lot of queer cabarets,
&, for their intended audiences, really do important cultural work
(even if I still find a lot of the work she told us about boring in
terms of what I seek in poetry).
But this, yeah, I'm with you....
Doug
On 17-Jun-09, at 4:55 AM, Tim Allen wrote:
> >"A poetry SLAM competition in two rounds.
>
> First Round: 4 Competing Categories:
>
> DARK poem - a sad poem wearing all black
> GLAD poem - a happy poem in colourful clothes
> SHAG poem - sexy words in lingerie, fetish, flesh
> DRAG poem - gender-bending words in drag"< etc
>
> Probably a bit of fun but sooooo cliched it makes you cry. Why is it
> that all this performance stuff is so predictable and conventional
> and does everything to reinforce stereotypes (aesthetic and
> otherwise)? The whole thing goes against the grain of challenge and
> questioning, weather of genre, language or identity, that innovative
> and experimental poetry are known for. This is why the performance
> scene, despite all its rhetoric about being about youth and energy
> etc, is ultimately so conservative and harmless and safe, and hence
> why it is so acceptable to the literary establishment.
>
> Tim A.
> excuse cross posting - by which I mean cross posting, not cross
> posting
>
Douglas Barbour
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