Difference between performance and written poetry

[Zondrae]

G'day all,

With my poetry - I try to take all comments as positive. I am either thick skinned or just thick, as I can't recall any negative comments made directly to me about my writing. Those who know more about writing than I do, and have offered their assistance have been most generous and helpful to me. I know I still have a long way to go til I am writing as well as I would like to. I won't name names, but there are a couple of people who have been so supportive of me, in both the writing and performing areas, that I would not have even started being involved in poetry without them.
I own them a lifelong debt. - Poetry has become so much a part of my life that I don't know how I would have survived retirement without it. I guess I would have found something else to do, but nothing else could have been so fulfilling.

So now, I must prove myself worthy of their support and go write something. It may be a 'throw away', it may be 'competition material' or it may end up being a performance piece - but regardless, it will be the best I can do today.

[Kym]

Yay Zondrae, you've brought up another brilliant point - "Poetry has become so much a part of my life that I don't know how I would have survived retirement without it".

I also have found it to be therapeutic through my illnesses. Just having another place to go, mentally, not physically, was of great benefit to me.

To the thunder of hoof beats through mountains and creeks,
the brumbies ran wild in my head.
To the thunder of keystrokes, I’d write and I’d ride.
I shared every stride as they fled.
Only words on a page, but I lived in each verse,
tears of joy, not of sadness, were shed.

[Zondrae]

Ahh! Kym,

..if only I could write as well as you. (even if there is a horse mentioned.)

[keats]

It’s often said that a performance poem can be a little more liberal with the rules than a written piece, which suggests, rightly or wrongly, a kind of lower standard, but once it’s posted on a forum (which they often are) isn’t it really in effect now a written piece? Or is that oversimplification?


the original question.

Very thought provoking. A performance piece can be pushed to the limit. Especially comedy. Half rhymes. metre broken with facial expressions and hand gestures. There is really no limit. Greg North would get shot for breaking the continuity in his version of the Man From Snowy River in many circles. But the Hats? Makes it a classic performing piece. As for original works, you are correct. I have published three books and the time I have spent trying to turn performance poems into readable works is unbelievable, which is why I stick to CDs of performance works now, and only publish works which have clean, readable metre. Maybe not award winning stuff, but readable and entertaining, I hope. Once published, it is a written piece and must be somewhat legible!! If it can't be made so, then don't try to write it down for others to read. Keep it for performing. So I agree fully with your original enquiry, even if it sums me up to a tee!!! lol

Neil McArthur

[Leonie]

Thank you Neil ... finally someone who understands what I was trying to say. I couldn't have put it better myself, and if it describes you to a tee, then good on you, I reckon you've got it right.

I think one of the reasons I was pondering this question was because Adam (my son) gave me a whole swag of poetry books for Christmas and one was a collection of poems by an author I have always admired when I have heard him reciting his verses on TV or on radio, but when I read some of those poems I had trouble picking up the metre and for the first time noticed some of the rhymes were a bit off as well. At the end of the book he had made a note of the fact that he would have preferred that some stuff had not been included because it was written for performance but his publisher insisted, because they were such favourites.