The Presentation of Poetry (and where the future will take us)
I just got back from a poetry reading by Justin Katko and Katherine Fronk and I figure I might as well add a little blurb about it here on my blog. I almost didn’t go because it was so wet and miserable out (get me out of Ohio!) but I’m glad I decided to attend. Justin is a grad student at a local university and he really seemed to put together some interesting work. It’s always cool to see what kind of work grad students are doing—it’s kind of like looking into the future. The work presented tonight was part of an ongoing series called Ritten To.
Katherine Fronk, who I believe is an undergraduate student, presented her work first. The poetry she read seemed much more conventional than the poetry Justin would present in a media format later. Katherine’s work seemed very accessible to the average listener or reader. Most of her poetry seemed a little dark, but my favorite one she read was entitled Dreaming in Circles. It was written in three parts, and each part played off the previous one. The sound of it was quite beautiful to listen to.
Starkly contrasted to Katherine’s conventional poetry is the collaborative work she did with Justin. They presented a poem called Scores, a video filmed and edited by the two young poets. To sum it up, they cut up little exam booklets that students use to write essays on during tests. With the little tiny cut up parts, they write one or two words per page. With video editing, they flip through each page rapidly, flashing several words in succession every second. (Think subliminal message style poetry). The words flew by so fast I had no idea what I read. However, in the end, I felt like I got something out of it all. It was extremely interesting work and I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it before.
I wonder about the new digital age that poetry is entering and the new ways poetry is being presented. As far as this reading goes, the video poetry grabbed my attention much more profoundly than the conventional poetry. However, the conventional poetry was much more accessible. Poetry seems to be exploring different modes of presentation that fiction cannot. In a digital age, it would seem the best way to attract an audience’s attention towards a piece of work is through digital presentation. However, this is not always a benefit. If a poem can only be presented digitally, then fewer people will have access to it. I guess until this kind of poetry can be more easily and widely shared, poets will have to share their work through more conventional means if they hope to reach a wider audience.
4 comments:
I actually was at this reading, too! I’m a student at that university, and an English major, so I was there! I think some really interesting things took place…especially at the end. First, though, some of my thoughts on Katherine’s part of the reading, since she is worth not skipping, and a few other things.
I went into this reading with a very good understanding of Katharine Fronk’s work, as she’s a friend of mine and we have had a few poetry workshops together, but no knowledge of Justin Katko’s work. All I knew about him was that he is, for some reason, a pretty big deal in the Oxford literary community. Sort of a famous poet. So, I was very curious to see what his work is actually like. I am happy to say that I really enjoyed the reading—the contributions of both poets, and I think some very interesting things took place.
I had heard all of Katharine’s poetry before, as we had workshopped most of it in our Advanced Poetry Workshop last semester. I loved the changes she had made, and it certainly sounded quite mature and an improvement on the first drafts. Also, I really experienced through this how incredibly different it is to hear a piece read aloud at a performance as compared to seeing it on a page, and seeing it with an intentionally critical eye. She read confidently and hearing the poems made them come alive so much more. Each word became more special and seemed to have greater purpose. I didn’t hear the visual format or get caught on the same things that I would when reading the work on paper.
One of the things that fascinated me about Katko was how he seemed to embody his poetry. He moved fluidly between performance and speaking “poetry”, and just speaking normally, as if he were just introducing himself or something. In this sense, everything about him could either be poety, or be “normal” and daily, or interestingly, both. I could never quite tell when he was “the artist on stage” and when he stepped out of the role. This continued all the way to the “end” of the performance. I say the “end” for a reason, too.
Justin, throughout his portion of the performance, made comments that indicated that he wasn’t really sure what he was doing, that all of this was experiment. For me, this played with my sense of trust in him as an artist, and as in control. Yet, he continued to present things, indicating that he did know, to some unknown extent, what he was doing. At the “end” of his performance, he seemed to be a little disoriented, explaining that the clip he wanted wasn’t there and seemed to go into a new piece then without explaining what it was. He put on a video clip, accompanied by a song, and then walked out of the room purposefully, followed by the emcee, filming him on his video camera. The audience continued to watch the screen as the same ten second clip was played over and over. It was the song from “Cheers” about going “where everybody knows your name” accompanying images of modern technical madness and strange google seaches. The juxtaposition illuminated the over complicatedness of our modern world.
When Justin left the room and the audience was left alone, and that’s when the program really got interesting. In my mind, the issue of trusting the artist became the focal point. We sat there, waiting for him to play the typical role of being in charge of the show and presenting something to us, and us remaining passive and in the position of being entertained/instructed/whatever we’re supposed to be. We all continued to sit for almost ten minutes, trusting the artist and letting him maintain control, even though he wasn’t present. We assumed this was planned, part of the art. And I think that it was, but in a way we weren’t expecting. To me, it was an interesting artistic moment because it brought the audience into the work in an active role. We had to think about the intention of the artist—Was he going to come back? Why is he having us sit here for so long watching this? What will he do if or when he comes back? Is it over and are we supposed to leave? What are we supposed to do?! Is it our choice?! Eventually, the audience came together, all restless, starting to sing along to the song in an attempt to do something with the strange situation. We were abandoned by the artist and left in the middle of the piece of art! Eventually, as the restlessness heightened, someone stood up and said that there’s another door in the back of the room which leads directly outside and we can all go out that way. We can escape through the secret way! Were we too scared to go out the regular door and see the real intention of the artist behind that door? One girl lingered by the main exit for awhile, saying to the group, to no one in particular, that she was scared to go out that way. However, after gathering her courage, she did! I have no idea what was on the other side of that door because I went out the “secret door” with the rest of the audience. We took charge of the event and decided this was the time to leave, and that fleeing into the night, away from the artist, was the method. I certainly think that, in this way, we were forced to actively participate in the art. It came off the page and off the screen, and the art became a real-life event and decision, not just in the hands of the artist, but in the hands of the onlooker. I still wonder just how much of this was intentional. Interesting stuff!
I was not able to attend this reading, but I did make it up to Miami University a year ago, and saw jUStin katKO! (if he's even still spelling it that way) read at the poetry festival, 'post-moot.' However, at this festival, the ‘Cheers’ song was played, and everyone sang along. It’s interesting that he chose to play an excerpt (perhaps?) of that bit—adding in a more political element, what with the violation of privacy (‘everybody knows your name’… google, click) and then pick up and leave.
You mentioned that you weren’t sure if what he did was intentional: in my experience, he seems to very much embody his work and likes to be avant-garde and provocative. It is an interesting idea to play with the concept of audience, and that may be what he intended to do. Or perhaps he had to go to the bathroom. It could have been either. I think what is more interesting than jUStin’s motive, though, is the audience’s reaction: to sit there for a full ten minutes? And only after realizing that he clearly wasn’t coming back, to start singing? And then escape out the back door? Did anyone use the front door?
What absolute control he wielded, even when not present! My question for you is this: is it important if it was intentional? It seems that everyone got something out of the reading (if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have sat in morbid anticipation for ten minutes, waiting for more.) I think this taps into a bigger question: is authorial (or artists’ in general, I suppose) intent important to consider when interpreting a work? Obviously, live performances are more temporal, and therefore choices made, however subtle or insignificant, have deep impact on the audience. Though I suppose this could be argued either way—written v. oral/performance.
However, not to tread into reader response theory, the question remains: how important is the artist’s intent? Art museums used to have little cards next to the pieces on their walls with the artists’ names and the titles of the pieces—and a date, if you were lucky. Now they have blurbs about inspiration, sometimes using words like “abyss.” So why do we give a damn? Each one of us will, inevitably, free-associate to something from our own personal experience; can the artist effectively affect us in his/her own way? Should we let them try?
Just from reading everyone else's post I can gather some information from this particular poetry reading. Performing poetry makes the actual poetry completely different than sitting at home and reading a book of it. The experience comes alive as you see the author entertain and perform in front of an audience, that holds no candle to sitting at home by myself with a glass of wine and reading it. Many of times you can even get a different idea of what the author was trying to express in their words.
With this particular reading, experimental poetry was performed. I also feel that it can break or make any type of text. With experimental you can have the most original themes and ideas but your audience may not agree and enjoy the text as well. In one of the other comments it mentions that as well, performing out of the ordinary readings can be a bit scary and may not even go over well. But what is life without some scary moments and waiting to see if all those eyes watching you are going to like what you are doing? That could be a question that I would be interested in knowing what others think, if you have an extra "special" and out of the ordinary piece of writing, would that cause you not to read it in fear of what the audience may think/say? Life is about chances and if you don't take them, I personally think someone else will and that could lead to regret.
At the end of Jacqueline's comment she posed a question that I thought was very interesting, "How important is the author's intent"? That question has so many possibilties, but here is my two cents.
The author's intent could be completely different than that of the audience, most of the time in complicated pieces it is. Now in some author's instances they may get upset or some emotions may come out in disappointment. But I consider writing to be another form of art, and art can be taken in many different ways. This quality is one of the most important reasons that I enjoy reading and writing so much!
hey there
we published justins work (reading palm) not too long ago.
check us out at
www.midwayjournal.com
talk about small worlds
Post a Comment