it's just not natural
FROM October 16, 2006
question: why do so many poets read in ginsberg voice, fake rhythm, flattening out their tone at the end of lines? as if anything other than monotone will threaten the impact. or that, if they sound like they don't feel it, we will do it for them.
no!
more nikki giovanni - more drums!
<< | Posted on October 16, 2006 at 4:32 PM | >>
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not sure exactly what you mean by fake rhythm, but that monotone is sometimes a product of we poet folk trying to avoid weighing down the poems with put-on fakeish emotion--like those times when folks feel the need to artificially heighten the drama by yelling a poem that's outraged enough in what's on the page (Baraka mostly does it well, but he's Baraka); sometimes sounding like you feel it too much is far worse than too little. Of course, a lot of poets just push it too far in the affect-free/jazzbo beat-speak direction yr talking about and turn into aids for our space-outs.
Sort of related: if you're still a fan of Vito Acconci, the complete run of 0 to 9, the little magazine he did with Bernadette Mayer and that has a lot of his early text work, is being republished, and there's an event next wednesday at the poetry project--if not good, at least interesting. You lucky new yorkers.
MN on at