Performance poetry
On June 23, 1916, Hugo Ball performed one of the first sound poems, Gadji beri bimba at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, dressed in a cardboard costume so that he had to be carried onto the stage.
A stated objection to this presentation method protested their performance poems translated into text on paper could not compete with poetry written for print publication.
The National Endowment for the Arts is now accepting varied presentations for publication verification for poetry fellowship applicants, including audio recordings that have no printed versions of the poems.
[citation needed] During that time, San Francisco and New York were the centers for this type of activity; however, Austin, Texas (The Third Coast) also had a thriving scene during the 1980s with a coterie of unique characters such as raúlrsalinas, Konstantyn K. Kuzminsky, Joy Cole, Hedwig Gorski, Roxy Gordon, Ricardo Sánchez and Harryette Mullen, who was nominated for the National Book Award.
Other performing writers in the robust literary scene of the Austin area during that time when performance poetry turned into a school of poetry included Pat Littledog, Eleanor Crockett, Jim Ryan, Chuck Taylor, Greg Gauntner, Albert Huffstickler, W. Joe Hoppe, Andy Clausen, poet and playwright Isabella Russell-Ides (Getting Dangerously Close To Myself, Slough Press) and David Jewell (poet); most recorded on Hedwig Gorski's audio anthology project.
[citation needed] Jewell deserves special mention as a transitional figure, younger than the aforementioned, and one not especially rooted in the Beats like Gorski who has strong connections to Ginsberg, Corso, Gary Snyder, and others.
Global Writes Inc. has been incorporating technology, such as videoconferencing and podcasts, into literacy programs as a means for students to share their poetry.
The public performance of poetry became generally restricted, at least in a European context, to the staging of plays in verse and occasionally, for example in the cases of the Elizabethan madrigalists or Robert Burns, as texts for singing.
In Britain, sound poets like Bob Cobbing and Edwin Morgan were exploring the possibilities of live performance.
Meanwhile, many more mainstream poets in both Britain and the United States were giving poetry readings, largely to small academic gatherings on university campuses.
[8] The other type of performance poetry Gorski practiced is without music and tied to conceptual art, but that was at appearances in smaller venues that could not accommodate her band.
Chief among the proponents of these new forms of popular poetry were Bob Holman in New York, Marc Smith in Chicago and Alan Kaufman in San Francisco.
Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky gave new visibility to ordinary Americans reading and performing their favorite poems.
The art school was infamous for starting the careers of numerous 1970s performance artists, such as Vito Acconci, known for photographing his bites.
Performance poetry has also been boosted considerably by the appearance of Def Jam—the hip-hop recording company helmed by Russell Simmons—on the scene.
Hispanic performing artists, such as Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarín, Giannina Braschi, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, are known for their humorous and politically charged attacks against American imperialism.
This adds to the vitality of American performance poetry and connects to the social protest of Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg.
Setsuko Chiba [ja] is a Japanese poet and artist who takes the theatrical way of performance poetry since her debut in East Village in New York.
In 2018 the Prague-based poetics collective Object:Paradise was established by writers Tyko Say and Jeff Milton with the mission to make "poetry readings more inclusive, inter-disciplinary and less restricted to art cafes and turtlenecks".
[15] The collective has since aimed to make poetry readings more similar to language happenings which involve a variety of interdisciplinary acts and performances occurring at the same time.
His Live New Departures - a touring version of his poetry and arts journal New Departures (launched 1959) - gave space and opportunities to poets like Pete Brown and Adrian Mitchell who combined performed verse with the backing of jazz musicians like pianist Stan Tracey and saxophonist Bobby Wellins.
Horovitz, Brown and Mitchell would join Ginsberg and Beat colleagues Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso and other European poets at that landmark London occasion.
These developments were also connected to the emergence of the Liverpool Poets, which referred mainly to the poets Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten who fired up audiences across the UK in the 70s and then the likes of John Hegley emerged in the 80s, influenced as much by stand-up comedy as a love for wordplay, creating the template for what became recognised as contemporary British performance poetry - a format still exemplified by the work of acts such as Murray Lachlan Young, Francesca Beard and Gerard McKeown.
Apples and Snakes, a collective promoting performance poetry in pubs and at festivals, was started by Mandy Williams, PR Murry and Jane Addison in London in 1982 inspired by the work of New Variety/CAST.
In the 90s, however, in big cities like Manchester and London, a different style emerged that was influenced more by hip hop with much less emphasis on comedy in the manner of Def Poets in the United States.
Well-known writers from this evolution include Lemn Sissay and the late Dike Omeje from the Manchester scene and Roger Robinson and El Crisis from the London circuit.
[19] Other initiatives such as Lyrikal Fearta by Jonzi D have shaped street-based art for the stage, extending spoken word to short prose productions and fusing performance poetry with dance.
