madpoetry

Does anyone know how to invite Charles Olsen onto the blog? He sure is alive and well among you!

I wanted to comment on the readings. Happy to hear that you are thinking about them _as readings_, and wondering what makes an effective reading, what a less effective one. A couple of you told me that Deborah's reading didn't work as a reading, because she read at a monotone. To which I want to say that slam poetry has had its good and its bad effects. Good = returns to the idea that poetry can and ought to be popular, that it can communicate what happened this very day, and can do so in ways that are accessible to an audience that has not spent its life in the Biblioteca National. Not so good = that all poets are expected to bring drama to the stage, entertain us. Work that is interior, philosophical (not that all philosophy is quiet), that follows the shape of thought rather than of daily life per se, that work suffers when it's read out loud. John Ashbery is often considered a poor reader, but much of his work is severely interior, even when it's funny. The funny poems do emerge well from his broad western NY accent . . . but not all poetry is funny (to make a statement so obvious as to be silly, if not funny).

Any thoughts on readings? (either the out loud ones or those you are doing in preparation for our workshop)

We went to the Museo Archeologica today. Radhika noticed nothing Roman, nothing Greek, but she pointed at and commented on every single fire extinguisher in the entire building. "Shooter!"

sms