Writen vs. Spoken poetry

[butters]

THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY! Make your wish come true! Post a poem you want read and lets see how many of us (willing folks) will read it. I'm betting loads of different interpretations!

really? wow! okay, let me go get one.

i'm also gonna have to get earpieces sorted. so i can hear them.

 

[CharleyH]

really? wow! okay, let me go get one.

i'm also gonna have to get earpieces sorted. so i can hear them.

I think it would be fun. I hope I'm not alone.

 

[butters]

well, there are a few, but two that immediately spring to mind are these - one short, one long (for the bravehearts amongst you):

the shape of the thing

who can tell me the shape of madness?
what varicose seas drive forth
in tension of the blood
what sad, voluptuous dreams become
escape from inner voices
as they burn the heretics -
over and over




and you and you and you


too soon, too soon, the eagle flew
while you were busy drawing down
the moon into those icy hands,
purchasing one-eyed wisdom
to crowd your poppied mind
until you could no longer stand
but gently tumbled tousled thoughts
to fall asleep in twilight lands,
asleep in the laps of legends.

and, as you dreamt, a river of woe
washed over you and carried you down
to those blasted banks, where the rocking stone
could be toppled by the gentlest touch;
you stroked the smooth-skinned serpent's egg
and, though asleep, you cried real tears
for emotions that somehow eluded you
and for the names of the faces
you seemed to remember
with a distant and palsied anxiety.

and you dreamt you wrote a mystic piece
where vague and shuffling demons danced;
where Odin cast aside his mask
and settled on your shoulders, round
a mammoth task:
a burden irredeemable - a lance;
a lance to bear in diamond jousts,
advancing through the teeth of fear
to seize that chance to win the soured prize.

Methusulah, with his long grey beard
whispered in your sleeping ear
of fools and wise men, sons and daughters
the Devil's love for holy water
of a single, human footprint in the sand;
of the perils of duplicity
the rigours of respectability
of such passions as can tear apart a man.

and on the sharp infliction of
such sorrows' textured wounds, you woke
with knotted hair and eyes still chasing phantoms;
and even though the darkstream coursed
still dully in your veins, you spoke
of fields of blood and lonely Death's cold tantrums;
and lifelong cravings threatening to choke ...
to strain and break the slenderest of throats.

with that distempered mind you reached
for lightless needles littering the floor;
and, as a stray dog to its vomit, warm,
to poisoned dreams did you return, once more.

 

[CharleyH]

I'm game. Who else?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

And Charley, I believe Lauren still has copies of some of my spoken poetry. If she wants to post links here, feel free--or not.

I will have to go hunt down those files. I hope I still have them!

The conversation Charley and I were having earlier today was about the very subject of this thread. When she had first told me of this thread, my immediate thought was that the "natural state" or "default setting" of poetry is to be read out loud. Poetry originates, after all - at least in Western tradition - from storytelling, at a time when most people didn't know how to read or write. Being read out loud as part of a communal experience is, therefore, a fundamental part of poetry's DNA. It's true that when we write a poem today (and here I'm thinking of its structure, not necessarily its message), we are concerned with more than just "how it sounds" - that poem will also, more often than not, need to play into our intentions visually.

The exception that jumped at me right away was concrete poetry - I guess because I had recently been reading about early surrealist poetry in Portugal. For some reason, I hadn't even remembered slam poetry, rap, and other performative forms. What Tzara mentioned about another poet annotating his performance poems is fascinating, and really makes a lot of sense. Occasionally, a poem that really works as a performance, can fall flat on paper - it can look sloppy, its rhymes awkward, its meter less than perfect. In such cases, I think it would beneficial to the reader if those annotations were always included, the same way stage directions are always included in plays. It would at least have the merit of putting the prospective reader in the right state of mind when he/she approaches that poem.

Another exception that I should have thought of are audio poems - not poems that are read aloud, not performances - but poems where the fact that they are audible play a fundamental role in the structure and in the very nature of the poem. The poem that always comes to my mind is, like Charley was saying, smithpeter's digital tape. If you look at the transcript of that poem, it's very, very simple - almost simplistic - but when you play the audio, you realise that the delivery and the medium are more important than the words themselves, and all of those aspects are fundamental parts of the process and of the message conveyed.

Doesn't anyone have a copy of that audio file, anywhere?

 

[Xelebes]

Palba Noruda said:


And note I was inspired by Bflag when he said:


Funny you should mention, Palba ... I was just out on the patio talking to Lauren about this same subject. (Hopefully, Lauren will enter the discussion and articulate ideas surrounding the convo.) In any case, your post tweaks my curiosity even more.

At one point in time, before TV, before radio or the printing press, poetry, spoken-poetry, must have been one of the main sources of entertainment aside from ghoulish campfire tales and dramatic tragedies. I don't know the history of rhyming, but would be fascinated to know the beginnings of it. On the one hand, rhyme has a greater potential for adding comedy to story and I wonder if it (rhyme) was added to the story telling wheel in order to do just that. On the other hand, I think back, way back into history and a time when most were illiterate, hard-working and without much leisure time and I wonder if rhyme might have been created for the simple reason that a story with rhyme was just easier to memorize and re-tell. Anyhow, just some thoughts and now back to reading all the other responses.

Rhyme was perfected by the Irish in 7th century AD - before then it was merely trivial motifs that you'd use it. Once it was perfected, it spread to other languages and brought forth a change in the standardisation of pronunciations, allowing dialects to grow. Before that, the Germanic tribes mastered alliterative verse, reaching it's peak with Skaldic verse in and around 10th to 12th century AD. Before all that, it was all in meter. No real consistency with rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance.

 

[bflagsst]

Rhyme was perfected by the Irish in 7th century AD - before then it was merely trivial motifs that you'd use it. Once it was perfected, it spread to other languages and brought forth a change in the standardisation of pronunciations, allowing dialects to grow. Before that, the Germanic tribes mastered alliterative verse, reaching it's peak with Skaldic verse in and around 10th to 12th century AD. Before all that, it was all in meter. No real consistency with rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance.

The reason for meter and rhyme was because it made folktales/epics/histories easier to memorize and that's how the illiterate passed on vital cultural information to new generations. At some point there's a disconnect, maybe it's Thomas Campion and the earlier balladeers that did it. Poetry starts resembling songs, then the printing press made literacy cool and people could read for fun so there's another disconnect, people start writing for readers instead of listeners. Read for fun? What kind of fun is that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eblai2gis1c

 

[bflagsst]

EPMD probably knows more about Campion and the balladeers. But as far as I can tell Campion is sitting write at a crossroads in poetic expression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Campion


Campion
http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/Renascence_Editions/poesie.html

vs. Samuel Daniel
http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/ryme.html

^^^^ this is the battle I've been looking for, the standoff that Samuel apparently won! What intrigue!

 

[PandoraGlitters]

I will agree to disagree with the "jihadists" who believe that poetry that uses sonics, rhythm, rhyme, or cares about the feel of words in the mouth is inherently inferior or antiquarian. I run an open mic each week at which 40 people around the world attend to read and to hear poetry. Not many of the poets who read are actually spoken word poets, interestingly. Most read it to share their work and, as it is read, the words appear as text on the screen. Further, I perform every other week an hour's worth of my favorite poems (some are mine but many are the works of poets I adore). Clearly, hearing poems read is an experience many find valuable.

I'll be attending the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark at which, every other year, many poet laureates read their work (as well as a hundred or so other poets, most quite accomplished). This is one of my favorite things ever: imagine Woodstock for poets! It's a wonderful and inspiring gathering. Perhaps I will see some of you there.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

It becomes a shared experience rather than the more personal one of reading. Once something enters the air and involves our senses we pass it into the realm of performance and audience. I think that's why I write over performing most of my poems. It takes something special to abandon the security of a one to one sharing of the written word and put yourself out there to an even broader audience of listeners, the scope of which involves people who may not be readers but are just as critical as other writers. Scary!

I like the way you put this, champagne. Reading out loud to an audience certainly creates a different quality of vulnerability than posting a poem here, for instance. I quite enjoy the feeling of reading a piece out loud; partly that's my personality and partly comes from training in theater, music performance, and Toastmasters International, of all things. It's funny because I am quite shy and reticent, but can perform quite well for small groups and large, if I do say so myself.

one thing I have appreciated when listening to spoken word poetry is repetition, since one cannot go back and re-read parts of a poem while fixed in time and space at the mercy of the reader


One problem I have with converting my written poetry to spoken is having to fill in the extra words

...

It makes me feel less of a writer and more of a performer. Both are fine just different.

I agree with you here, Miss Swirls. I believe I used quite a lot of repetition when I read poems out loud at readings and at critique groups. That carried over into a lot of my other writing. I am still sometimes accused of underestimating the audience's ability to follow along with a piece of written writing.

omg i LOVE this picture of him!

Woot woot! It's funny you posted this bc I was just thinking of how the only photo I've seen of WW are the old man with the beard photo, and subsequently, that is who I see living and writing the poems. Of course he wrote most of his work as a young-ish man. This photo is very nice

I will agree to disagree with the "jihadists" who believe that poetry that uses sonics, rhythm, rhyme, or cares about the feel of words in the mouth is inherently inferior or antiquarian. I run an open mic each week at which 40 people around the world attend to read and to hear poetry. Not many of the poets who read are actually spoken word poets, interestingly. Most read it to share their work and, as it is read, the words appear as text on the screen. Further, I perform every other week an hour's worth of my favorite poems (some are mine but many are the works of poets I adore). Clearly, hearing poems read is an experience many find valuable.

I'll be attending the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark at which, every other year, many poet laureates read their work (as well as a hundred or so other poets, most quite accomplished). This is one of my favorite things ever: imagine Woodstock for poets! It's a wonderful and inspiring gathering. Perhaps I will see some of you there.

I like reading out loud to an audience and listening live, also. I used to read more poetry out loud, but now I usually read stories (of course I consider the short story to be a form of poetry but that's a different topic). Either way, I always leave a live reading a very changed person. The energy that is created in a live reading is incredible, the different quality of vulnerability as suggested by champagne results in something very powerful, I feel.

Also, I think there is a great deal of "training" that is done in the live performance. The energy that is created certainly affects how the mind reads things to itself even silently. I imagine that a person who is raised by wolves howls to himself rather than talks to himself LOL.

There is a very genuine conflict between the written word poets and the slam poets. Reciting your poem is pretty different than something meant for performance. I don't like recitation or performance poetry at all. I've liked certain performances and certain poems read aloud, but as a genre I think it's disingenuous, since the poem is crafted and created in text. It exists in text world before it's torn from the page and presented.

But what about music?

Sometimes I sing in a church choir. It is something I love to do and the audience seems to enjoy it, too. There is something about tuning the voice with the voice of others. However, singing poems is a strange behavior. Why manipulate the vocal apparatus that way at all? Why not just read the words to the audience, without music. Why go through the trouble of setting them to music? Or why not just print the words out on a piece of paper, let the audience read them silently, then go home without ever speaking to each other at all?

Also, I believe some poets speak their poems before writing them. I would actually prefer to write that way, though it would take a fair amount of training for me to get there. I think it would result in a lovely conversational style. Have you ever tried rapping?

 

[Epmd607]

I will agree to disagree with the "jihadists" who believe that poetry that uses sonics, rhythm, rhyme, or cares about the feel of words in the mouth is inherently inferior or antiquarian. I run an open mic each week at which 40 people around the world attend to read and to hear poetry. Not many of the poets who read are actually spoken word poets, interestingly. Most read it to share their work and, as it is read, the words appear as text on the screen. Further, I perform every other week an hour's worth of my favorite poems (some are mine but many are the works of poets I adore). Clearly, hearing poems read is an experience many find valuable.

I'll be attending the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark at which, every other year, many poet laureates read their work (as well as a hundred or so other poets, most quite accomplished). This is one of my favorite things ever: imagine Woodstock for poets! It's a wonderful and inspiring gathering. Perhaps I will see some of you there.

lol. I don't know that there are any jihadists around. All poetry uses sonics, rhythm, rhyme, the feel of words in the mouth. Most of my poems have never been spoken, but I might care more about the beat and sound and feel of the words in my mouth than performance based poets.

Flaubert used to scream his passages at the top of his lungs in the middle of nowhere to get the feel of the words right. I've tried that when I've gotten stuck on a line or two. Saying lines out loud helps in writing. But I think the point Bflagggg is making and the one I hinted at earlier, is that the natural course of poetry isn't recitation as it was a thousand years ago. I'm very much interested in what poetry is now compared to what it was in the past. Thomas Campion and Samuel Daniel, Shakespeare and the gang were very familiar with the history of poetry. Me and my fellow poets don't seem to be as knowledgeable about are poetic lineage. The 19th Century poets sided with Daniel, but that made the written poem superior to the spoken for all eternity.

 

[butters]

sigh - so many thoughts inspired by these responses. it's very .. quieting. i have to give my brain some time to filter all the information!

now Shakespeare



his words are something for the eye to caress, and can lift the heart, but when performed ... that's when they really come to life. well, when performed well, i'd hazard. if badly, they'd crawl up inside their own hypothetical ballsacks and die.

 

[Yesspleasse]

Last year, we went to the Flat Lakes Arts Festival here in Ireland. I would heartily recommend it for anyone who likes the flavour of quirky, low key, spontaneous, truly hip (dis)organization. Additionally, those enamoured of the Irish accent can enjoy eavesdropping in a queue at the beer tent behind Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea, and possibly get served a pint by Lily Allen's dad.

Anyhow, my main reason for posting is that at the festival, there was a guy doing poetry on horseback. He was dressed in casual riding gear, wasn't particularly handsome (IMO, sorry mate, if you're reading this) and drifted around on a magnificent steed looking for anyone who wanted a 'random' poem read to them on a one-to-one basis, from on high as it were, from the anthology he was carrying.

Basically, after the experience, women were metaphorically (and literally) throwing themselves at him.

Not sure if the listeners would have obtained the same response by reading a poem. :]

http://www.theflatlakefestival.com/2010-PROGRAMME

http://www.theflatlakefestival.com/2010-Line-up-of-Artistes

 

[butters]

Last year, we went to the Flat Lakes Arts Festival here in Ireland. I would heartily recommend it for anyone who likes the flavour of quirky, low key, spontaneous, truly hip (dis)organization. Additionally, those enamoured of the Irish accent can enjoy eavesdropping in a queue at the beer tent behind Cillian Murphy and Stephen Rea, and possibly get served a pint by Lily Allen's dad.

Anyhow, my main reason for posting is that at the festival, there was a guy doing poetry on horseback. He was dressed in casual riding gear, wasn't particularly handsome (IMO, sorry mate, if you're reading this) and drifted around on a magnificent steed looking for anyone who wanted a 'random' poem read to them on a one-to-one basis, from on high as it were, from the anthology he was carrying.

Basically, after the experience, women were metaphorically (and literally) throwing themselves at him.


Not sure if the listeners would have obtained the same response by reading a poem. :]

http://www.theflatlakefestival.com/2010-PROGRAMME

http://www.theflatlakefestival.com/2010-Line-up-of-Artistes

i know i'll not be able to go, but would surely love to visit it. how could i resist, with its Butty Barn? eh? lol

the guy must've been a good reader, or the women weren't too fussy - allowing themselves to get carried away by the romance of the situation

if he was a bad reader, i might be more likely to be throwing up

that sounds so bitchy. i don't really mean it there's something about the setting, the atmosphere of a place that can make it all charm, regardless.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I think there’s another aspect to this discussion. I had the good fortune in an otherwise long and too often boring career in a bureaucracy to become knowledgeable about Jung’s work on psychological type. Whether or not life is absurd as some would say, we are nonetheless programmed to seek meaning in the world. Jung noted that people had clear preferences for how they perceived reality. Extroverts and introverts, words we use today commonly, had a unique distinction for him we normally do not think about when we mean “shy or not shy.” For Jung, extroverts discovered meaning primarily through the process of social interaction while introverts did so through the process of reflection. Of course, we do both in our lives, but for Jung there was a clear and measurable preference between people for no apparent reason having to do with how we are socialized.

My colleague with whom I trained an organizational application of Jung’s psychological type theory used to say he was so extraverted he’d take his dog with him to the bathroom to have someone to talk to. I on the other hand have a clear preference for introversion.

We all seek data to support how we prefer to perceive the world, sometimes at the exclusion of other data, so I probably will never have a similar dog story to tell.

I also have a clear preference for poetry as a reflective art compared to performance. While there is reflection with a performance of poetry, there is also a process of social interaction and often shared community absent in the reading of a poem, and I perceive them as different. For Jung, effective human development was the process of bringing opposite and preferred psychological types (there are others besides introversion and extroversion) into closer alignment through learning from experience, and that may be the provocative comment here: The longer I experience both forms the less distinction I may make between the two. If that’s the case, however, I’m still not there yet, preferring to read a good poem again and again and again.

 

[Yesspleasse]

i know i'll not be able to go, but would surely love to visit it. how could i resist, with its Butty Barn? eh? lol

the guy must've been a good reader, or the women weren't too fussy - allowing themselves to get carried away by the romance of the situation

if he was a bad reader, i might be more likely to be throwing up

that sounds so bitchy. i don't really mean it there's something about the setting, the atmosphere of a place that can make it all charm, regardless.

There was a very laid back vibe about the whole day (think 'Woodstock' meets 'Craggy Island') and the weather was very sunny and warm. I don't think he was a particularly good reader, but you know, a man on a big horse, in Ireland.............ok, maybe it was mostly the effect of the horse. The Jane Austen thing. :]

To be honest, I don't remember the poems myself, but if I'd had a pint or two and the horse rider was a woman.............

Anyhow, it was better than 'catch the pig' which was drunk people, er, trying to catch a pig.

Butty Barn. Yes.

 

[Yesspleasse]

I think there’s another aspect to this discussion. I had the good fortune in an otherwise long and too often boring career in a bureaucracy to become knowledgeable about Jung’s work on psychological type. Whether or not life is absurd as some would say, we are nonetheless programmed to seek meaning in the world. Jung noted that people had clear preferences for how they perceived reality. Extroverts and introverts, words we use today commonly, had a unique distinction for him we normally do not think about when we mean “shy or not shy.” For Jung, extroverts discovered meaning primarily through the process of social interaction while introverts did so through the process of reflection. Of course, we do both in our lives, but for Jung there was a clear and measurable preference between people for no apparent reason having to do with how we are socialized.

My colleague with whom I trained an organizational application of Jung’s psychological type theory used to say he was so extraverted he’d take his dog with him to the bathroom to have someone to talk to. I on the other hand have a clear preference for introversion.

We all seek data to support how we prefer to perceive the world, sometimes at the exclusion of other data, so I probably will never have a similar dog story to tell.

I also have a clear preference for poetry as a reflective art compared to performance. While there is reflection with a performance of poetry, there is also a process of social interaction and often shared community absent in the reading of a poem, and I perceive them as different. For Jung, effective human development was the process of bringing opposite and preferred psychological types (there are others besides introversion and extroversion) into closer alignment through learning from experience, and that may be the provocative comment here: The longer I experience both forms the less distinction I may make between the two. If that’s the case, however, I’m still not there yet, preferring to read a good poem again and again and again.

Interesting thoughts.

 

[butters]

There was a very laid back vibe about the whole day (think 'Woodstock' meets 'Craggy Island') and the weather was very sunny and warm. I don't think he was a particularly good reader, but you know, a man on a big horse, in Ireland.............ok, maybe it was mostly the effect of the horse. The Jane Austen thing. :]

To be honest, I don't remember the poems myself, but if I'd had a pint or two and the horse rider was a woman.............

Anyhow, it was better than 'catch the pig' which was drunk people, er, trying to catch a pig.

Butty Barn. Yes.

now i want to go even more

sigh
maybe one day.

 

[Yesspleasse]

now i want to go even more

sigh
maybe one day.

In the meantime, here's a taste


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3143/2797941230_e555bafc34.jpg?v=0

http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000fuhFrtGGkrk/s

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2715784991_84ba018673.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iM7IX9yPLXU/SokjwIhxzlI/AAAAAAAABFQ/SjwcjfH4X8E/s320/Nuala.jpg

http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000Qs89.fn2V8w/s

http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/UserFiles/Image/Flat%20Lake%20Festival/Keith-Allen150.jpg

http://c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000rgB2_n8Iopk/s

Oddly, that last one kind of sums it up. :]

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I think there’s another aspect to this discussion. I had the good fortune in an otherwise long and too often boring career in a bureaucracy to become knowledgeable about Jung’s work on psychological type. Whether or not life is absurd as some would say, we are nonetheless programmed to seek meaning in the world. Jung noted that people had clear preferences for how they perceived reality. Extroverts and introverts, words we use today commonly, had a unique distinction for him we normally do not think about when we mean “shy or not shy.” For Jung, extroverts discovered meaning primarily through the process of social interaction while introverts did so through the process of reflection. Of course, we do both in our lives, but for Jung there was a clear and measurable preference between people for no apparent reason having to do with how we are socialized.

My colleague with whom I trained an organizational application of Jung’s psychological type theory used to say he was so extraverted he’d take his dog with him to the bathroom to have someone to talk to. I on the other hand have a clear preference for introversion.

We all seek data to support how we prefer to perceive the world, sometimes at the exclusion of other data, so I probably will never have a similar dog story to tell.

I also have a clear preference for poetry as a reflective art compared to performance. While there is reflection with a performance of poetry, there is also a process of social interaction and often shared community absent in the reading of a poem, and I perceive them as different. For Jung, effective human development was the process of bringing opposite and preferred psychological types (there are others besides introversion and extroversion) into closer alignment through learning from experience, and that may be the provocative comment here: The longer I experience both forms the less distinction I may make between the two. If that’s the case, however, I’m still not there yet, preferring to read a good poem again and again and again.

I haven't really thought of introvert/extrovert as polar opposites, but more as a spectrum. And they may not entirely be degrees of the same attribute, some component of introversion may be orthogonal to components of extroversion. Rarely does a binary classification reflect the true nature of things, but does aid in analysis.

I'm quite introverted, and 'girl-shyness' was quite an obstacle in my relationship with my first love, contributing to its being an unrequited love. I looked into both of these on Wikipedia and noted statistics indicating that girl-shyness affects less than 2%, while 98% have experienced unrequited love.

I also tend towards the written than spoken for poetry, although my fondness for alliteration clearly indicates some vocal influence.

 

[bflagsst]

I'm looking for a genealogy of western poetics. Whether I like poems performed or not, or whether anyone else has a preference is anecdotal to me. I think there's a marked difference between the performance of a thousand years ago and the performance this Friday night at Java Joe's Cafe. I believe it has to do with the textualization that occurred with the printing press, literacy and so on into the Renaissance. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, but he kept his sonnets secret, they only lived textual lives. Slam poetry is something new, it's not a revisiting or relinking to the past. To revisit the past a poet has to create the poem and perform it all off paper.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

lol. I don't know that there are any jihadists around. All poetry uses sonics, rhythm, rhyme, the feel of words in the mouth. Most of my poems have never been spoken, but I might care more about the beat and sound and feel of the words in my mouth than performance based poets.

Flaubert used to scream his passages at the top of his lungs in the middle of nowhere to get the feel of the words right. I've tried that when I've gotten stuck on a line or two. Saying lines out loud helps in writing. But I think the point Bflagggg is making and the one I hinted at earlier, is that the natural course of poetry isn't recitation as it was a thousand years ago. I'm very much interested in what poetry is now compared to what it was in the past. Thomas Campion and Samuel Daniel, Shakespeare and the gang were very familiar with the history of poetry. Me and my fellow poets don't seem to be as knowledgeable about are poetic lineage. The 19th Century poets sided with Daniel, but that made the written poem superior to the spoken for all eternity.

I think you're right epmd that this would be an interesting lense through which to study the history of poetry. I think if one were to undertake such a study, it would be interesting to consider how the personal experience of creating poetry changed as the culture changed over time, alongside the study of the big names and popular trends of the day.

I'm not sure if I understand the last sentence... the written poem is superior for all eternity...? I'm guessing you're joking but I'm not sure...?

I think there’s another aspect to this discussion. I had the good fortune in an otherwise long and too often boring career in a bureaucracy to become knowledgeable about Jung’s work on psychological type. Whether or not life is absurd as some would say, we are nonetheless programmed to seek meaning in the world. Jung noted that people had clear preferences for how they perceived reality. Extroverts and introverts, words we use today commonly, had a unique distinction for him we normally do not think about when we mean “shy or not shy.” For Jung, extroverts discovered meaning primarily through the process of social interaction while introverts did so through the process of reflection. Of course, we do both in our lives, but for Jung there was a clear and measurable preference between people for no apparent reason having to do with how we are socialized.

My colleague with whom I trained an organizational application of Jung’s psychological type theory used to say he was so extraverted he’d take his dog with him to the bathroom to have someone to talk to. I on the other hand have a clear preference for introversion.

We all seek data to support how we prefer to perceive the world, sometimes at the exclusion of other data, so I probably will never have a similar dog story to tell.

I also have a clear preference for poetry as a reflective art compared to performance. While there is reflection with a performance of poetry, there is also a process of social interaction and often shared community absent in the reading of a poem, and I perceive them as different. For Jung, effective human development was the process of bringing opposite and preferred psychological types (there are others besides introversion and extroversion) into closer alignment through learning from experience, and that may be the provocative comment here: The longer I experience both forms the less distinction I may make between the two. If that’s the case, however, I’m still not there yet, preferring to read a good poem again and again and again.

I like how you put this GreenM. It's interesting to consider those deeper causes for people doing things.

I'm looking for a genealogy of western poetics. Whether I like poems performed or not, or whether anyone else has a preference is anecdotal to me. I think there's a marked difference between the performance of a thousand years ago and the performance this Friday night at Java Joe's Cafe. I believe it has to do with the textualization that occurred with the printing press, literacy and so on into the Renaissance. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, but he kept his sonnets secret, they only lived textual lives. Slam poetry is something new, it's not a revisiting or relinking to the past. To revisit the past a poet has to create the poem and perform it all off paper.

I see your point about how poetry a thousand years ago was different than it is today. But I think I disagree about slam poetry. Surely there must be SOME link between slam poetry and the rest of the history of poetry. I may be misinterpreting your words, but it sounds like you're suggesting slam poetry just kind of arrived from nowhere?

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I'm finding this thread to be quite informative (especially when couple with google/wikipedia to chase stuff down) and thought provoking. With reading now nearly universal, especially lately with internet, written words will predominate more and more. There are benefits to spoken performances, but at present are more appropriate to particular sessions, rather than whenever I sit down to read (or write). We speak, rather than write, when our audience is present, so it is to some extent more natural. But it remains more difficult when alone. Our technology (books, internet, radio, phones, ...) remains more capable in visual, rather than auditory methods, especially when it comes to sending out (who wants to listen to poetry over a phone?). Even with advances in audio technology there is still the temporal vs spatial difference. You can look up from your reading and return where you were. You lose the sounds as they pass by. Perhaps we lack a suitable 'rewind' to replay for sound - just go back and begin again. Tapes and the like are a very linear media - perhaps one needs to somehow know how to got back to where you left off. The characters I'm typing now are equally linear, but their representation is as words, lines, paragraphs.

 

[Yesspleasse]

I'm no expert on poetry, but I'm finding this thread thought-provoking and I might as well add my tuppenceworth.

I'm thinking that poetry is essentially oral (and aural) and that written poetry is in a fundamental way 'secondary'. Aren't we, as a species, deeply embedded in and wedded to almost compulsive communication more than any other creature? How many thousands and thousands of years after language developed was it before stuff got to be written down in any quantity?

To me, poetry is in large part storytelling (linked in some ways to music also), even if it's only one complicated and articulate ape trying to communicate an idea or a feeling to another. In this sense, it was surely a shared activity, and functioned as an oral, performed tradition for much, much longer than in the written form.

That is not to say that written poetry has not added different, pleasurable and interesting qualities (of course it has, the ability to savour, reread and reflect at one's own pace for example), just that I would guess that these are not the core of the reasons why we have poetry at all, rather than there being no poetry.

As a layman, I will not take offense if others who are more familiar with the history of poetry correct my thinking. :]

 

[butters]

it's a wonderful thread to swim about in - so many concepts, the seasoning of passion thrown in, not some old dry debate. i love it.