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Zero Point Zero: From Page to Stage -- How Text Reflects Performance
In looking back over the columns I've written over the years, I realize that I've never really addressed myself to the question of how what goes on the page reflects what comes out of my mouth on the stage -- how I use the text of a poem to indicate performance cues, and how the consideration of eventual performance affects the writing of the piece.
So, let's talk about that.
It's a critical component of my own writing style, and it's the single thing that causes me the most heartache and pain as I'm writing something -- the single element of craft that I use, more than anything else, to help ensure that I'm getting the greatest possible impact of the poem. It's also the reason that I consider public performance of a poem as soon as possible after I've completed the first draft I post online (pretty much everything I write gets posted online to one or more of the forums or blogs I use) to be a necessary part of the writing process.
In this, I don't think I'm breaking new ground. Many, if not most, of the standard poetic techniques used in English -- things that fall under the general categories of rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, etc. -- are based in trying to ensure that a poem will have a certain music when read aloud. Although there's a school of thought that says that the true poem is found in the text, for me the performance and the text are interdependent in such a way that I can't think of either on its own as being complete without the other.
Much like American football, writing this way is a game of inches. When I write a poem, it's always -- ALWAYS -- with an ear toward how the piece will sound when it's read out loud, so most of my choices are carefully considered as I write and edit. The placement of a word, the choice of one word over another, even the choice of which articles and prepositions surround critical words, are governed at least as much by sound and rhythm as they are by meaning. There are lots of ways to transmit any given meaning alone; rarely are they, on their own, musical in the way that the best poetry is, and the search for the best music to match the words is important to me, and makes the difference between me being a poet versus an essayist or a short-story writer.
One of the best practices, for me, is to look carefully at line breaks. I am sometimes taken to task for the line breaks I use; truth is, most of my line breaks are based on breath units -- that is, the place where a line breaks indicates a specific moment of breath, a place where there's a natural pause in my reading of the poem at that point. I try to make sure that the words used in a given line pop the meaning I'm looking for; sometimes (quite often, in fact) I will change the words to reflect that breath unit, to ensure that the meaning I want from a given line is emphasized by its being contained in a single breath unit.
Even when I use enjambement -- the continuation of a line or sentence across lines or stanzas -- there's usually an implied pause in the line break. Line breaks, thus, work as one of my punctuation techniques.
I also am questioned, sometimes, on my use of staggered line lengths in a given poem -- a combination of short and long lines within the same poem. Generally, when I do this, it's an indication of pace when speaking -- a longer line tends to be read faster than a short line, as I get a lot more words into a single breath.
I also use a lot of regular stanzas -- stanzas with a set number of lines in each, usually in threes or fours, occasionally longer. While there's not a set thought process I use in deciding this -- it tends to be governed organically by the poem -- there's a definite logic to the breaks and grouping, as they tend to work as paragraphs even when thoughts are continued across stanzas.
Internal and end rhyme, assonance (correspondence of vowel sounds) and alliteration (correspondence of consonants), work to pick up and connect ideas and emphasize meanings and resonances. Even the choice of long and short vowel sounds and accents are usually carefully thought out.
While I'm not suggesting that every element of every poem is equally plotted out with similar emphasis on every element, I do try wherever possible to work hard on ensuring that the music of the particular language used -- right down to the use of multi-syllabic words over shorter words -- is examined with an eye toward making everything dance in service to what I'm trying to say.
For the performance poet, I think, this is a critical point. If we're to ensure that a poem is readable past our own existence, we need to work on making sure that the sheet music of the poem -- namely, its text -- is a reflection of how we want the performance to sound. I'm not saying we all have to be this crazed and anal about it -- but some attention to it will ensure that our work will live beyond us, and that it isn't totally dependent on our own voice. It helps to universalize the work.
At the very least, it helps me to do that.
Submitted by Tony on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 (15:43:51) (1112 reads)
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Re: Zero Point Zero: From Page to Stage -- How Text Reflects Performance
(Score: 1 )
by chameleon on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 (21:59:45) |
Nice to read you again, Tony. I have two kinds of poems - ones that are composed in my head and aloud and only get set on paper after I've got the poem solidly by ear, and those that I write on paper (or keyboard) first. I use the breath technique unconsciously when I transcribe a piece I've written by ear - and when I revise, it's almost always playing with the line breaks to get it to more accurately reflect how I want it to sound.
Here's a question though - while I understand what you mean about wanting your transcription to reflect your performance, do you leave room for interpretation when someone else reads your work aloud? I still remember watching someone else perform Fuckdoll in an other people's poetry slam years ago and being struck by how differently she read and interpreted and performed my work. What's your feeling about that kind of thing?
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