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A Dialect Written in the Spelling of the Capital: Basil Bunting Goes Home

Matthew Hart

in Nations of Nothing But Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism, and Synthetic Vernacular Writing

This chapter analyzes the late poems of Basil Bunting. It questions why Bunting's return to northern England in middle age — a nostos that shapes his autobiographical poem, Briggflatts (1966) ... More

This chapter analyzes the late poems of Basil Bunting. It questions why Bunting's return to northern England in middle age — a nostos that shapes his autobiographical poem, Briggflatts (1966) — has come to dominate the critical reception of a body of poems that begins with three decades of globe‐trotting. The chapter explores the tension between Bunting's rejection of dialect orthography and his assumption of a Northumbrian vernacular interpretive community. It historicizes this anomaly by reading Briggflatts through Bunting's involvements in poetry performance and arts patronage, and via the United Kingdom's history of regional reform without constitutional change at the center.Less

Sound Reading

Peter Quartermain

in Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word

The chapter focuses on the idea whether it is possible to read a poem aloud badly and whether it might be possible to read a poem aloud well. This chapter also presents what constitutes “poetic” and ... More

The chapter focuses on the idea whether it is possible to read a poem aloud badly and whether it might be possible to read a poem aloud well. This chapter also presents what constitutes “poetic” and “unpoetic” throughout the discussion. Poetry readings take place in a great variety of conditions, and the contingencies attendant upon the occasion affect the reading performance itself. Texts that are familiar to the audience might well be heard in a more critical frame than would texts that are completely new to the hearers. This might suggest that a poem, then, would best be read in the dialect of its maker. The difficulty in voicing the poem, though it has something to do with our understanding of the work, may also have to do with a kind of tentative polyvocality, a simultaneity of possible tones and interpretations, possible inside the head but impossible of public performance.Less

The Breath of a Poem: Confessional Print/Performance circa 1959

Christopher Grobe

in Art of Confession: The Performance of Self from Robert Lowell to Reality TV

Today, we may know confessional poetry as a set of texts that are printed in books, but in its time it was also a performance genre. This chapter demonstrates how the performance of poems—in the ... More

Today, we may know confessional poetry as a set of texts that are printed in books, but in its time it was also a performance genre. This chapter demonstrates how the performance of poems—in the privacy of the poet’s study, at public poetry readings, and in the studios of recorded literature companies—shaped this genre, determined its tactics, and influenced its style. An extended comparison of Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg shows that breath was a key medium for confessional poets, and a study of Anne Sexton’s career—both on the page and at the podium—shows how she “breathed back” dead poems in live performance. Throughout, this chapter focuses on the feelings of embarrassment confessional poetry raised, and the uses to which poets could put such feelings. It also highlights contemporary trends in “performance” and their impact on confessional poets—e.g., Anne Sexton’s debt to the acting theories of Konstantin Stanislavsky and to Method acting as theorized by American director Lee Strasberg.Less

Materializing Millay: The 1930s Radio Broadcasts

Lesley Wheeler

in Broadcasting Modernism

This chapter begins with an account of Edna St. Vincent Millay's on-air reading series, placing it in two contexts: the early history of broadcasting, and her own performance practices during ... More

This chapter begins with an account of Edna St. Vincent Millay's on-air reading series, placing it in two contexts: the early history of broadcasting, and her own performance practices during enormously popular reading tours. Millay's broadcasts occur at an important juncture in radio history in the United States; their timing strongly inflects their meaning. Her radio work also harmonizes with recent scholarship on poetry readings and recordings, in particular the relation between performed and printed poems. The second and third parts of this chapter discuss the relationship between the audiotexts and printed versions of the poems Millay selected for one recorded broadcast. The analysis here focuses on two concerns shared by these pieces and magnified by her style of delivery: tropes of sound and presence; and, more briefly, Millay's engagement with the idea of “naturalness”.Less

From the Podium to the Second Row: The Vanishing Feel of an Anne Sexton Reading

Christopher Grobe

in This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton

“From the Podium to the Second Row” argues that Sexton’s readings deserve to be remembered as performance, at least in this more-than-theatrical sense, and (assured of this caveat) Sexton herself ... More

“From the Podium to the Second Row” argues that Sexton’s readings deserve to be remembered as performance, at least in this more-than-theatrical sense, and (assured of this caveat) Sexton herself would have argued the point. Poetry readings, in turn, were “a reliving of the experience, that is, they are happening all over again” (No Evil Star 108). So, if what’s “happening” in performance is what’s “happening” in the poem—and if it’s hard to tell the difference between these and what’s happening in real life—well, this, for Sexton, was a mark of her performative success.Less

1961–1968

in A Gallery to Play to: The Story of the Mersey Poets

Brian Patten met Roger McGough and Adrian Henri in Liverpool in 1961. Michael Horovitz described the emergence of the Beatles around 1963 as somewhat related to the three men, whom he considered pop ... More

Brian Patten met Roger McGough and Adrian Henri in Liverpool in 1961. Michael Horovitz described the emergence of the Beatles around 1963 as somewhat related to the three men, whom he considered pop poetry. In early 1962, cub-reporter Patten included early articles on Henri and McGough in the Bootle Times and started a magazine called Underdog, which ran until 1966. The Merseyside Arts Festival, first held in August 1962, was inspired by the South Liverpool Festival of Art that took place two years earlier. Henri and McGough seemed natural choices as committee members for the festival, but not John Gorman. In 1963, Horovitz invited McGough to read at the Cellars Club as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The place would become a fixture in the careers of the Mersey Poets and many of their subsequent associates. The Mersey Poets opened Sampson & Barlow's, which held poetry readings until 1964 and was visited by the world-renowned Black Mountain poet Robert Creeley. An unlikely supporter of the Mersey Poets was Edward Lucie-Smith.Less

Bearing Witness: 1993-1996

Dana Greene

in Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life

This chapter details the life and career of Denise Levertov from 1993 to 1996. In early May 1993, after her decision to retire from Stanford, she learned that a biopsy of an ulcer revealed she might ... More

This chapter details the life and career of Denise Levertov from 1993 to 1996. In early May 1993, after her decision to retire from Stanford, she learned that a biopsy of an ulcer revealed she might have non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Paradoxically this news was energizing and prompted her to resolve to use her time well. She felt grateful she had been given the chance to experience beauty and to enrich the lives of many wonderful friends. Life had not cheated her, and she had no regrets. She was particularly thankful that she had enough financial resources to pass on to her son Nikolai. Retired, and with looming health problems, Levertov was unwilling to put energy into anything other than writing, poetry readings, and deepening her spiritual life. She did not want to return to protest activity, both because of her disappointment in others and fear of what she called her own “knee-jerk” reaction to political issues.Less

“Once Only”: 1997

Dana Greene

in Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life

This chapter details Denise Levertov's final year of life in 1997. The deaths of En Potter and Steve Blevins, Mitch's life-threatening cancer, and her own increasing weakness and worsening health ... More

This chapter details Denise Levertov's final year of life in 1997. The deaths of En Potter and Steve Blevins, Mitch's life-threatening cancer, and her own increasing weakness and worsening health chastened Levertov. Although she always had a sense of the perishability of life, neither her diaries nor poems of this period show a preoccupation with death. A few of her closest friends knew of her lymphoma, but most did not. As her health deteriorated, she vacillated between the desire to live and a denial of nonliving. Mostly she kept on using her limited energy for writing, giving a few lectures and readings, being with friends, seeing doctors. She also restricted her poetry readings, but she did manage to give two in April: one at Stanford at which she read with Eavan Boland, who had been chosen as her replacement in the Creative Writing Program; and the other at the University of Oregon, Eugene, where composer Robert Kyr, inspired by the poetry of Sands of the Well, created Symphony No 7, “The Sound of Light.” Levertov died on Saturday, December 20, 1997.Less