I have been worrying about this
The term performance poetry was somewhat current to indicate an emphasis;
and then others began saying that they did performance poetry; and it
seemed that this entailed exclusions which were never much specified
Ditto spoken word
I have sometimes wondered if spoken word is using too many words. In
normal parlance, to speak is to speak words. Personally I reach for other
words such as utterance if I want to speak of poetry which involves...
er... utterance
But if you say _spoken poetry_, what are you saying? Unless spoken word
poetry is understood as a kind of handshake... not that there is anything
sinister; but I sometimes wonder if this -- to me -- avoidance of saying
with any precision what one is doing is just lazy
When I hear spoken word on the radio, it is often described as _the best
of spoken word_ which begs a few questions as well as making it sound like
breakfast cereal
Not the best of poetry but the best of spoken word poetry, with the built
in redundancy I have noted
It seems to me that there is more to this than writing with the intention
of performance.
L
On Wed, October 19, 2011 13:23, Tim Allen wrote:
> That's what we used to call 'performance poetry'. If 'spoken poetry'
> is what we now call performance poetry then what does 'performance poetry'
> mean now? Or is 'spoken poetry' different because it doesn't have the same
> ethos as 'performance poetry' - to entertain and appease and ingratiate
> yourself to the listener with every trick in the BOOK. Is 'spoken poetry'
> more arty?
>
> Tim A.
>
>
> On 18 Oct 2011, at 17:11, Deborah Stevenson wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Patrick,
>>
>>
>> I am talking about 'spoken word' as in a writer/poet that writes
>> their own material and then memorises and performs it. Usually writing
>> with the intent to do so from the onset of writing. Does that make sense?
>>
>>
>> Deborah
>>
>
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UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
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Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
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Lawrence Upton
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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