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talk poems
Last night's Myopic Poetry Series event was John Beer's "Talking About the Talk Poem."
I'll post a write-up soon, probably tomorrow, although I thought it might be useful to start off by giving a short background on the most well-known practicitioner of the talk poem (as such), David Antin.
The Norton Postmodern American Poetry does a good job of this:
"Known for his practice of the 'poem-talk,' an improvisatory talk performance before a live audience, David Antin is at the foreground of performance poetry internationally. Presenting himself as a speaker rather than orator, dramatist, or actor, Antin tends to work in sequences of narratives, often inspired by memory, which he interweaves with general musings and even statements of poetics. In an introduction to a poem-talk in his first major collection, talking at the boundaries (1976), Antin wrote:
...i had always had mixed feelings about being considered a poet 'if robert lowell is a poet i dont want to be a poet if robert frost was a poet i dont want to be a poet if socrates was a poet ill consider it'"
OK. More tomorrow. |
Monday, May 03, 2004
4:06 PM
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