What happens in your mind at poetry readings?

November 4, 2013 3:35 AM

I take poetry pretty seriously. I read poems carefully and can break them down analytically or use intuition and imagination to get what I think is meaningful personal response. However, at live poetry readings my mind wanders and I'll grasp what's being read mostly in fragments and maybe one or two whole poems for the evening. I'm fine with this, and see it as a partial stage in a life-long mindfulness practice. But I'm wondering what happens in other literate and intelligent people's minds when they are at readings. Do you hear the poems in their full-blown significance? Do you think about the clothes attendees are wearing, or the delivery quirks of the presenting poet, or what?
posted by bertran to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

An old teacher of mine, Debora Greger the awesome poet, used to tell all her students that it's ok to daydream during a poetry reading. Her students all thought that was blasphemy but I loved it. It freed me to experience poetry however I experienced it.

To be honest a lot of poets, good ones, put zero effort into their performance. Some put too much effort into it. And some just aren't good at all. But if you bring a notebook and jot down whatever does occur to you during their readings, whether about the author's work or anything else, or nothing at all, you'll be better off than trying to force yourself to pay attention at every moment.

The best situation for poetry is being read aloud by you when you are alone. It's not your fault or the poet's fault that hearing them declaimed in a hot library or comfy theater makes you a bit sleepy and whimsical. Enjoy it for what it's worth, don't stress about it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:16 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yeah; I'm pretty dreadful at poetry readings. The last one I went to (a group of Canadian poets who all fell along roughly pastoral lines) even the act of trying to stay concentrated proved a distraction. I could maintain it for the start of each poem, but at some point I'd become untethered.

In part I am easily distractable [I often have to move my phone out of reach while reading], in part it's the fault of many readers (I once saw Seamus Heaney, who was fantastic, and had no such issues, but then I was very familiar with his work, which definitely helped), in part I think I like to be able to go off in tangents when I read poetry, and while this works on the page, it doesn't on the stage.

I'm fine with accepting that (as much as I like poetry) most readings aren't really for me.
posted by Hartster at 4:20 AM on November 4, 2013

I have an MFA in poetry (weirdly, from a school where Debora Greger taught. Small world!) and am now a fiction writer. I have been to more literary readings than I care to remember.

Most writers are not good readers.

Performance and writing are two completely disparate skills. I find it a touch easier with poetry if only because poems are short, but my mind still wanders, especially when readers have what I think of as MFA delivery, a peculiar kind of affectless rising and falling cadence that seems disconnected from any emotion. In comparison, most slam poets are wonderful--the nature of the community is one where readers are focused on performing and entertaining a live audience, rather than proper arrangement of words on the page.

That being said, some of their works aren't as effective for solitary reading. Delivery can make all the difference, but I think that it's something largely disconnected from the quality of a work. Slam poets and spoken word artists are seeking different things--a particular effect with sound, a rising and falling of tension--that is only effective and relevant during a performance.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:26 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

I prefer to read poetry on my own, truthfully. Some poets are fantastic at reading their work, but I've heard plenty of amateur poets who have this odd, affected, urgent hippie-William Shatner delivery, sometimes punctuated with sharp intakes of breath, and it really takes me out of it. I can't hear the language or the meaning, just the stilted unnatural voice. It's sort of like how I have trouble watching old movies because the actors' accents don't sound realistic to me.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:27 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Personally, I dislike poetry readings. For me, hearing poetry read aloud destroys the impact I gain by reading it to myself in my own inner voice. I greatly dislike audio books for roughly the same reason.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

It's the same as a rock concert -- you work on figuring out what it is you think about what you're hearing. No, you don't always catch every word, but you're doing analytical/interpretive work and there's no reason you can't focus on one amazing line you just heard, even if you don't connect it with the rest of the poem as much as you might if the whole thing were there in front of you on the page.

In other words, I do what you do, and I think it's fine.

And yes, I do notice the delivery quirks and the clothes! I mean, you're standing there in the same room as another human being looking right at them, how are you going to not notice?
posted by escabeche at 5:56 AM on November 4, 2013

I've always thought that your environment and passing thoughts were all part of the experience of a poetry reading. If you want to concentrate on just the structure and meaning of a poem, read it at home. If you want to experience it in the wild, sit in a coffeehouse on a summer's evening while someone reads it to a group of strangers who have all come together to listen to poetry. What you see, smell, hear, and think all become part of the poem. But, then again, I am a Beatnik dork, so YMMV :P
posted by evilcupcakes at 6:04 AM on November 4, 2013

Some of this may depend on whether you are oriented more to vision or auditory perception. I know in my personal experience that I retain and analyze information better when reading it versus hearing it. I haven't attended a poetry reading in ages, but each time I did my thoughts were overwhelming on the side that I would prefer to just read the poem.

This doesn't make visual interpretation more right or better. I'm live performance has value of its own -- a kind of temporal shared interpretive experience that private reading doesn't impart.

I wouldn't be hard on yourself if you don't achieve the levels of analytic reasoning from a poetry performance. My gut says there is a different experience to be had. Some are better at it than others.
posted by dgran at 6:32 AM on November 4, 2013

If it's a poet I know already, I'll often bring one of their books if I have one--to get signed, if it isn't, but also to follow along when I can. I almost always get more (e.g., deeper sense of metaphor and structure and language) out of reading on my own than on hearing, although I like the added dimension of voice, primarily because I'm much more of an auditory than visual reader (i.e., I don't picture a lot in my mind; the words and the voice are the important things for me).

I do like the experience of being in the audience and noting others' reactions, as well--the soft "hm" at the end of a poem if it ends well is always enjoyable.
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:10 AM on November 4, 2013

It totally depends upon the poem and the reader. Some hold my attention more than others.

I confess to a strong bias toward a reader who reads a poem as if it's prose, and lets the rhythm of the words speak for itself. I don't like the delivery to get in the way of the material.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:14 AM on November 4, 2013

I think that many people who enjoy poetry are the kind of people who learn (and enjoy) things by reading them, not by listening. I've tried going to poetry readings, and it's the same effect as putting me in a lecture hall: even things that are normally interesting and easily comprehensible become difficult to pay attention to, and I never get the same value out of hearing them as I do reading them.

Combined with the above about some writes being Not Great Readers, I've realized that poetry readings are great (for me) for supporting poets, and occasionally places that I'll be exposed to interesting new things to look into later, but not places that I'm really going to go to experience/enjoy poetry.
posted by MeghanC at 7:33 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

Attention spans are so pared down as a result of social media and the internet and our fast paced lives. I went to a piano recital by a famous pianist about a week and a half ago and I didn't find it too hard to be engrossed, but I did try to ground all of my senses in the present moment and what was happening. I wasn't always hanging on the sound of every note, but sometimes I would just make an effort to process what I was seeing and hearing and feeling physiologically. Like sometimes I would notice the shine of the lights on her hair, or the brass wheels on the piano. And then my mind would drift back to the textures of the music and it was a nice way to enjoy the experience as a whole. If I had started getting distracted thinking about my to-do list for work or something outside the actual experience, that's when I think I'd feel like I was missing something. But I didn't feel the urge to "do" anything or analyze the experience besides just taking it in, and it ended up being very thrilling that way.
posted by mermily at 7:43 AM on November 4, 2013

I tend to think about what I would do differently if I were giving the reading.

Occasionally, though, a poet nails it, and I am transfixed. That's pretty rare. More likely, although still rare, is that a poet reads their poetry in such a way that I understand better "what they're trying to do" with the poetry—which, on the page, might have just looked like words before I heard their reading. That doesn't mean I'm fully mindful during the reading, but it does mean that it opens up the page for a more interesting experience later. Sometimes the poetry reading is, in a sense, research on ways to read poetry.
posted by Casuistry at 7:44 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

I don't take in information well aurally, poetry or otherwise. I have a masters in English and have read tons of poetry, I like poetry, I think it's beautiful, but generally speaking it doesn't do much for me to hear it read.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 7:47 AM on November 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

I enjoy oratory performance - listening to great speeches in theatre, storytelling around a campfire, hearing conference papers - it is a good mode for me. But it definitely isn't for everyone, and I've talked to people who say they just can't concentrate when someone doesn't have visuals with a conference talk, for instance. However, delivery always makes a difference, and in poetry I think it's key.

I like listening to poetry sometimes, with certain types of poets. Others I really don't enjoy live, especially an overly stylized reader. What I'm thinking of are some kinds of slam poets who dramatize in a particular way that feels mimicked instead of genuine, and worst of all, the "poetic poet" who pauses... every few syllables... and extendsss... or slightly upticks... the last word - I find it very hard to enjoy a reader doing that, even if the words on the page spoke to me. But if they're reading the words as if they contain specific meaning, not as "a poem" but as the words, then I usually like live performances.

Easy recent example of fun live performance - someone with a rambly voice and casual approach like Billy Collins on Colbert the other night...
posted by mdn at 8:02 AM on November 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's basically impossible for me to enjoy poetry readings, unless the poetry has really obvious affordances for live performance. On the other hand, listening to poets read in a workshop is easy—when I have a copy of what they're reading in front of me. I wish it was more common and acceptable for poets to show the text of what they're reading, maybe by projecting the text on a screen. The drawback is that you're deprived of the opportunity to experience, without outside influence, the aural aspects of the poem; but the benefits—being able to follow the text precisely, linger without falling behind, and better understand how the poet is adapting the text for reading aloud—outweigh that, IMO.
posted by aparrish at 9:17 AM on November 4, 2013

What I'm thinking of are some kinds of slam poets who dramatize in a particular way that feels mimicked instead of genuine, and worst of all, the "poetic poet" who pauses... every few syllables... and extendsss... or slightly upticks...

That kind of reader always makes me think of "Can I Have Fifty Pounds to mend the Shed?" from the Monty Python "The Poet McTeagle" sketch. It's very difficult to take someone like that seriously, no matter how good the actual words are.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:33 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]

I am an avid reader and writer of both poetry and prose. I cannot, for the life of me, listen to someone read out loud. It's boring and my mind wanders. I guess reading is much more visual for me and I read much faster than people can talk intelligibly, so I've never really been surprised at my lack of focus.

I enjoy the material, just not the presentation.
posted by lydhre at 10:08 AM on November 4, 2013 [2 favorites]