Great Readers
I would have loved to have caught Dickens or Twain or Wilde on tour. Or heard Whitman on something other than a scratchy Edison roll.
Sandburg with his guitar. Vachel Lindsay booming, "Booth beat boldly with his big bass drum."
Ginsberg at the Six Gallery. (The young Anne Waldman rocked.)
I just missed the superstars of High Modernism, Eliot and Dylan Thomas and Cummings, in person, although like every other English major in the fifties I memorized their LP intonations. And Siobhan McKenna doing "Molly Bloom's Soliloquy."
I don't know anyone today who can compare. Maybe Sherman Alexie, who's a tremendous showman, although I don't think he can be mimicked.
I love to hear Bob Hass ad lib. Dorianne Laux knows her poems by heart. Adrienne Rich is a mensch.
It's reassuring to hear certain poets read, because they put so little voice on the page; hearing them makes them seem human, which is always good.
Spoken Word and Slams are fine, but are they poetry?
As to the most boring reader of all, it's hard to say: I have my favorite, I'm sure you have yours.
Sandburg with his guitar. Vachel Lindsay booming, "Booth beat boldly with his big bass drum."
Ginsberg at the Six Gallery. (The young Anne Waldman rocked.)
I just missed the superstars of High Modernism, Eliot and Dylan Thomas and Cummings, in person, although like every other English major in the fifties I memorized their LP intonations. And Siobhan McKenna doing "Molly Bloom's Soliloquy."
I don't know anyone today who can compare. Maybe Sherman Alexie, who's a tremendous showman, although I don't think he can be mimicked.
I love to hear Bob Hass ad lib. Dorianne Laux knows her poems by heart. Adrienne Rich is a mensch.
It's reassuring to hear certain poets read, because they put so little voice on the page; hearing them makes them seem human, which is always good.
Spoken Word and Slams are fine, but are they poetry?
As to the most boring reader of all, it's hard to say: I have my favorite, I'm sure you have yours.
posted by Howard Junker at 12:51 AM
1 Comments:
Fanny Howe is one of my favorite or at least least-boring readers; she goes fast, fast, fast, just like guitarist Pat Martino who, when he teaches, refuses to slow down a line ("it wouldn't be the same phrase"), but is happy to repeat it over and over and over.
I improvised on guitar once while Bob Hass read at the Chi Theta Chi co-op at Stanford; the music-making felt unnecessary, but he seemed to enjoy it.
And I am reminded of the voices of political leaders produced by flames in birdcages
http://www.well.com/~demarini/exhibitions.htm
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