[ebooks] Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word (W.E.B. Du Bois Institute (Paperback)) by From Oxford University Press in Arts-Photography

Review

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A little disappointing or possibly outdatedBy ArthurI cant figure out how Bernstein and other editors make certain essay selections to become the spoken word guru scholars/editors. Marjorie Perloffs essay is brilliant. nevertheless. Maybe the editors taste is past it or no longer relavent to a younger crowd. for the most part. I recommend Voicing American Poetry: Sound and Performance from the 1920s to the Present for secondary material on this phenomenon. She takes a fresh look that seems more relevant. For those who want to "listen" to indispensable spoken word by a master of the genre Hedwig Gorski. tune into Send in the Clown: Live Radio Broadcasts of Performance Poet Hedwig Gorski. A woman. yes. and that may be why old-schoolers are out of touch with what is really going on. This book by so-called performance poet Gorski Poetique: Speak-Songbook for CD Send in the Clown (Micro Books. Volume 1) does have a quote from the trans-generation Perloff on the back: "Delightful." So between Gorski and Perloff. there may be hope for the old-schoolers yet.6 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Publishers summary of contentsBy A Customer*From the publisher:Close Listening and the Performed Word brings together seventeen essays. especially written for this volume. on the poetry reading. the sounds of poetry. and the visual performance of poetry. While the performance of poetry is as old as poetry itself. critical attention to modern and postmodern poetry performance has been negligible. This collection opens many new avenues for the critical discussion of the sound and performance of poetry. with special attention to innovative work. More important. the essays collected here offer wide-ranging elucidations of how twentieth-century poetry has been practiced as a performance art. The contributors cover topics that range from the performance styles of individual poets and types of poetry to the relation of sound to meaning. from historical and social approaches to poetry readings and to new imaginations of prosody. Such approaches are intended to encourage new forms of "close listenings"--not only to the printed text of poems. but also to tapes. performances. and other expressions of the sounded word. With readings and "spoken word" events gaining an increasing audience for poetry. Close Listening provides an indispensable critical groundwork for understanding the importance of language in--and as--performance.Contents: Charles Bernstein. IntroductionSounds MeasuresSusan Stewart. Letter on SoundNick Piombino. The Aural Ellipsis and the Nature of Listening in Contemporary PoetryBruce Andrews. Praxis: A Political Economy of Noise and InformalismMarjorie Perloff. After Free-Verse: The New Non-Linear PoetriesSusan Howe. Either/EtherPerforming WordsJohanna Drucker. Visual Performance of the Poetic Text Steve McCaffery. Voice in ExtremisDennis Tedlock. Toward a Poetics of Polyphony and TranslatabilityBob Perelman. Speech Effects: The Talk as GenrePeter Quartermain. Sound ReadingClose Hearings / Historical SettingsJed Rasula. Understanding the Sound of Not UnderstandingPeter Middleton. The Contemporary Poetry ReadingLorenzo Thomas. Neon Griot: The Functional Role of Poetry Readings in the Black Arts MovementMaria Damon. Was that "Different." "Dissident" or "Dissonant"? Poetry (n) the Public Speak: Slams. Open Readings and Dissident TraditionsSusan Schultz. Local Vocals: Hawaiis Pidgin Literature. Performance. and PostcolonialityAfterwordRon Silliman. Who Speaks: Ventriloquism and the Self in the Poetry Reading3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Listen to this bookBy Paul A. BakerWhat do poetry slams have in common with traditional poetry readings?More than one may think.Close Listening. edited by Charles Bernstein. offers 17 perspectives on how contemporary poetry has been practiced as a performance art. Nearly ten years after its initial publication. this book remains fresh and stimulating.Much literary criticism has neglected the auditory and performance aspects of the poem. Bernstein writes. But a poems sound and its meaning are aspects of each other. neither prior. neither independent.This collection of essays argues against the assumption that a poems text is primary. while a poets performance of the poem is secondary. and fundamentally inconsequential to the "poem itself." Bernstein observes that. in a poetry performance. explicit value is placed almost exclusively on the acoustic production of a single unaccompanied speaking voice.Contributors include Bruce Andrews. Marjorie Perloff. Ron Silliman. Susan Howe. and others; some performers in their own right.