A Howl against performance poetry:
By elevating energy and gusto over talent and judgement, performance poetry is strangling the real thing. [...]
Ironically, it is performance poetry that is eating away at the universal characteristics of poetry. Voice has become, not something that is welded into lines of language on a once-blank page, but a fetishised thing of personal ownership - my voice, with my accent and all I have to say with this voice is to do with me, me, me. That's why the only way you can experience this language is if I personally perform it for you.
Some performance poets - like Lemn Sissay - are good poets, so let's not go mad and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Nevertheless, the bath water is stagnant with its own misplaced self-righteousness and needs a good flushing out. The Poetry Society's Foyle Young Poets Awards event on National Poetry day this year drove this home to me. [...]
This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy
on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 4:42 PM.
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