Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Beginings of a Treatise on Performance Poetry

What I wish to do is develop techniques for videotaping and presenting performance pieces.

The writer, poet, artist, composer usually works alone. It is the solitary nature of creativity. While there is a great dissemination of work on the Internet, poetry is not mainstream. A century ago people memorized poetry, recited poetry in their sitting rooms, poets, like Byron, or Tennyson, were best sellers.

With the advent of media, poetry has disappeared into obscure journals, or Internet sites of individuals and groups dedicated to poetry but who really only read each other. The culture-at-large has all but forgotten poetry.

Poetry is beautiful, where language is most astounding. Most songs don't achieve the simplicity, richness or depth of a finely written poem. Poetry is honed language reflecting and shaping the concerns of the milieu in which it comes to be.

Yet poets are not singers, if they were they'd be out there like Leonard Cohen, or Joni Mitchell. Nor should it be necessary for a poet to add to their years of study of literature by having to also study film-making. There is no reason why a film of a poem has to be illustrated by images and carried with music, though, of course, these filmic components can add to the piece. My point is that the poetry itself should be enough, as were Dylan Thomas' lyrical readings on stages across America in his time.

Not just the words of a poem, but the reading of it can be magic. Poets can recite their work. There are poetry readings all over the world. Poets can perform their own poems.

What I would like to develop are film and editing techniques whereby the solitary poet, writer, artist, composer may capture their work in a solitary fashion on film and present it in video format to a multi-media world. I don't want to turn the poet or composer into a director at the centre of the collaborative venture a film is because this runs contrary to the solitary and introspective nature of most poets or artists.

By nature, the creative process is solitary. Poets are not collaborative. They read; they write. Alone. Surely a camera can be set up and a film created in the solitary world that the creative spirit works in for sharing with others. I am, therefore, exploring how the single camera on a tripod capturing a single performance can be edited to create a charismatic film of poetry that may be appealing to wider audiences and thus bring poetry back into the mainstream.

In this way poetry may become available to the masses who may find many poets, writers, composers superlative and celebrate and support them in the ways that they should be doing and would be if their work was presented in a format that the culture favours.

9 comments:

  1. Your aim is clear and well-defined here, Brenda, this vision you have of video performance poetry that makes full use of the visual medium to bring out the immediacy of the spoken word. I embrace your plan to make poetry again a viable viral meme in the culture in prescient ways.

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  2. Yes, John, I fully agree, and see possibility in this approach to poetry. While 'visual image essays' are one way of presenting a poem, the roving camera, the images, the edits, the voice-over, this is not the solitary poet's forte, and would require some training in film. I see no reason why techniques for making the single camera set on a tripod filming a single performance cannot be developed that are far beyond the earliest films in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is probably where we look for models since this line of cinematic technique has not been developed.

    Though, perhaps and in the end, switch-back cutting and fades and roving cameras, voice-overs and glimpses of performance are all that really 'works' - and then we have to develop models for poets to videotape their work that are based on music videos. Music videos costs millions to produce. A poet will have to do it on just about zero budget, other than the camera and the editing software and an internet connection!

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  3. If I end up writing a book about how to film performance poetry, perhaps I could call it, "Get Off the Page." Or "Get Off the Page and Into the World."

    While the glitzy circus-model for music videos is in vogue, and poets may not have the equipment or know-how to produce anything approaching a pop music video, what we may have to do is train public taste so that people could enjoy watching a CD of single performances and could gain much in terms of their understanding of their inner lives through such video poetry performances.

    Bertolt Brecht said, "Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it."

    And I agree with this view of art. It shapes reality.

    Perhaps public taste, then, needs to be shaped by superlative poetry performances that help to again open poetry as a whole as an art to the mainstream.

    Just some ideas... nothing more.

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  4. Becoming notes to myself: I just looked at poetryvlog.com, not too many readers, but I have some initial responses.

    Please use an on-screen tele-prompter. Google it- there are many free ones. Look at us while you read your poems. Please arrange lamp lighting so it reveals you while also flattering you. Contrast is fine. And do not think, 'Oh, I'm reading to a bunch of critical strangers,' because that'll trap your energy. Rather, pretend you are reading to an admiring friend who you are trying a little to impress, this will relax you and make your reading warm and inviting and perhaps add a little sparkle to it.

    Such suggestions as these are surely rudimentary as far as recording a watchable poetry reading. Not difficult at all. Just that most people don't know to do these simple things. Simple techniques which can make a huge difference in the 'watchability' of a poetry recording for an audience.

    If you disagree, or have tips to add, please do so.

    Thanks!

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  5. Note: because I'd like to keep this discussion in one place, I'm pasting in a comment thread from my Facebook site.

    Kyle Simonsen at 6:37pm January 14

    i took slight exception to your assumption that most poets are introspective and solitary and that this would somehow hamper their ability to "play nice with others" in a creative sense... the poetry that most interests me is usually collaborative. i like multi-author works, interpenetrating narratives, collaged found text, etc. more than anything, and working with directors on filming performance poetry would be more interesting to me than just reading poems on camera. of course, lots of other people might not feel that way (and i realize that they often, in fact, do not) but i think to create a personality characteristic and then use it as indicative of poets limits your project more than it enables it... does any of this make sense?

    teleprompters are great and all, but what ever happened to memorization? i can see memorizing a poem, and then reading it to create a certain effect.... i don't think poets think enough, generally, in the videos ive seen, about the effects they want

    Kyle Simonsen at 6:38pm January 14

    to create on camera... and if they don't want to think about these things, or use a generic template of some sort, then why bother to perform one's poem at all? find new ways to let the page speak for itself.

    Brenda Clews at 6:49pm January 14

    Kyle, I completely agree with you! I certainly apologize for making it sound like 'poets are solitary' was a blanket statement for all poets! Horrors!

    Poetry Jams are, of course, exactly the opposite to what I was talking about. And performance poetry in general is.

    Have you taken a look at poetryvlog.com? You'll see what I mean, I hope, if you see some of the footage of poets reading their poetry. This is not to say that a site like poetryvlog.com isn't a wonderful site that offers much of value to a poet - it most certainly does, but how much more effective would those readings be if they were memorized or if the poet was reading a teleprompter so they could look at the audience?

    I was only hoping to suggest some very, very simple things that could significantly help make poetry readings more pleasurable for a wider audience by poets who are not normally collaborative or do not normally 'perform' their work.

    If you do, completely wonderful and I'd love to see some of your work.

    Brenda Clews at 6:55pm January 14

    I wanted to add that if you are working collaboratively in multi-author works, in interpenetrating narratives, collaged found text, and are or potentially are working with film directors then your talents may be said to be both poetry and performance, the page and the theatre.

    Can this be said of the majority of poets today?

    A site like poetryvlog.com seems to suggest that there is a large population of poets who don't wish to or aren't into presenting their work theatrically. Or perhaps don't feel they have the skills to do so.

    For them, should this field be closed? Of course not. Surely some simple filming and editing techniques could go a long way to helping them to videotape their readings so they may gain a larger readership/audience.

    Or this is my feeling.

    Kyle Simonsen at 1:24am January 15

    i spent some time at poetryvlog after reading your blog today and it seemed like there was a lot of exactly what i have come to expect from poetry readings, which is just authors reading their poems.

    i'm kind've averse to "slam poetry" in general, but that's just my personal preference. i think sometimes the performative element is there and there isn't much else. most performance poets or slam poets that i know haven't read much poetry beyond the beats and other slam poets and whatever they were required to read in high school... and it shows.

    to the best of my knowledge, none of the readings i have ever done anywhere are on videotape, or at least not online... and that's probably for the best, since they would pretty much just be blurry videotapes of me, a little sloshed, reading poems in a bar.

    Kyle Simonsen at 1:29am January 15

    i guess i'm not sure that the sorts of poets at poetryvlog, many of them what i would consider to be of the more "writerly" persuasion, will really expand their readership through videotaping their readings. i mean, who is reading poetryvlog, for instance? you and i. poets.

    i'm really, really interested in this concept, and i hope my comments don't make you think otherwise. i'm all for improving poetry readings, and trying to determine what makes poetry relevant to the world at large and how to best deliver said relevant poetry to them.

    Brenda Clews at 2:28pm January 15

    Kyle, then time to get out the camera and play- or the webcam! I look forward to seeing some of your performance pieces! This is exciting. Tag me if you upload any pieces, even the ones on-the-way-to, ok. Thanks so much for your responses: I think we are on the same page as far as bringing poetry back into the mainstream. poetryvlog, other than showcasing a specific group of poets more-or-less to each other, wouldn't attract any kind of audience and hence would not particularly help bring poetry back into the public eye. This is not to say that the recordings poetryvlog are soliciting, inviting and saving aren't lovely in themselves and that what the site is trying to do is noble in itself. Just that those video recordings wouldn't appeal to a wider non-poetry-oriented public. Poetry is so fantastic that I'd like to see it much more popular than it is. So, go for it, Kyle.

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  6. I think you make some good points here. I think that solitary creation is much more possible now given the way that technology for video creation and sharing has improved.


    Although I take your point about the desirability of presentation of the poem without the frill of a musical soundtrack, the advent of creative commons music under a CC BY license at places like ccmixter.org, jamendo.com and the netlabels means that one can easily find music without the need to interface with a collaborator. This permits the poet who chooses backing music to control the creation, and not to get caught up as the "director" of a "film happening".

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  7. Poems are just the right substance to mold for the web - Audacity and Paint.Net along with Photo Story have been what I have worked with - looking forward to see more of your efforts.

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  8. Hi Nathan, thanks for dropping by. I've used Audacity, and recommend it, but what are Paint.Net and Photo Story? If poets are to video their readings, they definitely need an editing program. Apple computers come with iMovie, which is good, and FinalCutExpress is not hugely expensive. But with a Windows computer? I tried using the Windows program that came bundled with a Vista laptop last Summer and found it impossible to use. What would you recommend?

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  9. [Copying comments from a ning site that's closing]

    Comment by Brenda Clews on January 14, 2009 at 2:17pm

    John, this is fantastic. You know exactly what you are speaking about and I urge you to allow yourself to go full throttle in exploring these venues with your theatre company if you are not already. Can you, can you, please, please, offer a performance of any kind of one of your very own poems for us? I'm on one knee, a rose held between my lips, begging...

    Comment by John F Walter on January 14, 2009 at 1:56pm

    Hip hop videos, spoken word videos, the use of rap, rhythm, rhetoric, and intense charismatic energy, this shows one way to electrify with poetic materials and strategies. Another is the strand of theatre that evolving from the performance art genre that evolved from the Eighties minimalism into a cabaret staple in the Nineties--raw, autobiographical, intense, memory-swollen, and language as a high intensity delivery-injection system. Finally there is the stage monologue itself as a model, the dramatic or comic speech through which an entire world is revealed in a few moments of a character´s confession or revelation.

    Comment by Brenda Clews on January 14, 2009 at 1:42pm

    Yes, John, I fully agree, and see possibility in this approach to poetry. While 'visual image essays' are one way of presenting a poem, the roving camera, the images, the edits, the voice-over, this is not the pure poet's forte, and would require some training in film. I see no reason why techniques for making the single camera set on a tripod filming a single performance cannot be developed that are far beyond the earliest films in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is probably and unfortunately where we look for models since this line of cinema has not been largely developed.

    Though, perhaps and in the end, switch-back cutting and fades and roving cameras, voice-overs and glimpses of performance are all that really 'works' - and then we have to develop models for poets to videotape their work that are based on music videos. Music videos costs millions to produce. A poet will have to do it on just about zero budget, other than the camera and the editing software and an internet connection!

    Comment by John F Walter on January 14, 2009 at 1:29pm

    Thank you so much for the invitation, Brenda! I enjoyed reading the introduction to your project very much, since I share the vision in your presentation of poetry as a vital form of enactment, a performance, not something trapped on the page or screen as a static document.

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