Writen vs. Spoken poetry

[EroticOrogeny]

It's impossible knowing someone's tone in regular conversation on these message boards. You don't know if someone's joking, serious, honest, deceitful. Half the time I write something it seems like someone thinks I'm in confrontation mode, when I'm not at all. Text is weak for non-specialized, emotive communication, but the plus side is that it lets you become an active participant when reading stories and poems. You get to fill in the gaps in the story frame with your own expression.

There's instructional and technical writing, which is easier for some people to understand than someone speaking the same text, but for the most part, if you really want to understand someone's thoughts on something you want to be in the same room as them. That's why people go to certain grad schools and colleges, to learn under these people, as opposed to just reading their books.

When writing someone, it probably helps if you know the recipient well, rather than just from other text communications. Writing because you have too (and want to), because personal contact is impossible at the moment. I'm thinking more of long ago; before email and long-distance phone calls cost a fortune. And there still are things you need to express in person.

At one point the higher-ups wanted to outsource our stuff. We tried it on one product, and the result was a disaster. Even with modern communications and in a technical field, the gap was too great.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

There is a woman in my office who tells the same sorts of stories over and over. She has stories about her children. She has stories about her husband and her in-laws. When I talk to her, it is in her cubicle. Her chair is in the same position, all the items in her cubicle are the same. Her clothes change minimally from day to day, and her stories change minimally from day to day.

I believe she tells stories because it is part of the way she establishes her sense of identity. This is part of the reason people communicate. Different people communicate for different reasons at different times, I suppose. If a person is hungry, they might tell somebody they are hungry; it is a specific message about the condition of the speaker they wish to communicate.

Another person might feel like he wants to be a hero. Perhaps somebody important in his life was a hero and he respects that and wishes to be one also. His stories are structured so that he comes out as something as a hero figure. It's not always important for the listener to understand that the person is a hero; the listener might react as if the speaker is a hero or he might reject the speaker as a hero. The listener, as discussed earlier in the thread, does his own work with the story and comes to his own conclusions for his own reasons (that is true of all mediums, I believe.

When the listener rejects the hero message, sometimes the message becomes unimportant to the speaker. What is important is that he spoke the story, he affirmed himself as the hero in the presence of another. It feels good to the speaker when the listener responds to the storyteller as a hero, but it is not a necessary outcome of the storytelling experience in order for it to be a successful story. In fact, it might be possible that the storyteller is a complicated person and would in fact secretly prefer that the listener reject the story.

On the other hand, the storyteller may be very hurt that the story was not understood correctly by the listener. It's hard to tell with people, I think, and context is important. EDIT: The story might also be a lie, because the storyteller is a compulsive liar. Or, perhaps it is a joke designed to FUCK with the listener, because the storyteller secretly despises her.

There is not that much difference in the woman telling the same stories in the office and a program on tv. If each were a piece of art in a museum, the tv show would be a painting or photograph, the person would be a sculpture. Two dimensions versus three dimensions.

Some people write poetry and prose as an exercise in establishing and expressing an identity. They may have messages in their writing, but their goals may be complicated. Some people may enjoy the ambiguity that is possible in writing. While some see ambiguity as a weakness, others, who feel that ambiguity is a defining factor of the universe, see it as a strength.

There is a range of expressiveness in writing and in other forms of communication. Some people are very poor at expressing emotion in face to face conversation. They just haven't learned how or they feel very uncomfortable expressing themselves that way. Or they have learned, for a variety of reasons, to wear masks of smiles or frowns or may seem distant or aloof. Others are very poor at READING emotion in face to face conversation.

To bring this rambling around to written versus spoken poetry. I love the written word and have for a very long time. Some of my earliest sexual experiences involved the written word.

Some people WRITE letters, some people WRITE emails, some people write poems, some people write essays.

Some people want to exorcise demons by SPEAKING words. It is very rare that people become married without SPEAKING words. Where I come from, it is generally agreed that people from the east coast of the U.S. are more likely to 'SPEAK than people from the midwest. Gross generalization, I know. For people who come from talkers, perhaps speaking is the preferred way to establish identity.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[WriterDom]

What IS the difference between a written poem and a spoken-word poem?

IMO, a spoken poem is simpler, easier to vocalize in maybe a dramatic or musical way. A written poem (one meant to be seen on paper) might have more complex phrases, or stanzas not easily read aloud.

What are the things (features) that make a spoken poem different from a written one?

I find it helpful to read any written poem out loud that I write.