Performing Poetry

Welcome

Here you will find a collection of resources and commentary directed toward performing poetry in theatre. Our basic technique is based on the 5-step method developed by William Packard:

The Proper Approach to a Poetic Text

Two Key Handouts from Poetscraft.com

The poetscraft.com website full of resources.

Two key hands in pdf form for viewing or download:

The Proper Approach to a Poetic Text:

• Download Properapproachtxt

Poetry Acting Syllabus:

• Download Poetryactingsyllabus

Pictures from Breughel etc.

Thanks to Norman Taffel for bringing our attention to these poems by William Carlos Williams, and for continuing to bring them alive in class!

A blog with the Pictures from Breughel accompanying the texts of the poems.

A audio recording of a 1987 class by Allen Ginsberg on William Carlos Williams available on the Internet Archive. Search this site for more by Ginsberg on Williams.

Sound recording sources

The remarkable archive of recordings I mentioned:

UbuWeb sound

And of course, search this too:

Internet Archive

On the Daimon and the Muse

Of many references to daimon in the context of our discussion, this one is useful: Daimon, Genius: Character

Plato's "Apology", in which Socrates mentions his daimon, the "inner oracle".

Plato's "Ion", in which Socrates explains the nature of inspiration and the Muse.

Fenton's "Jerusalem

Text of Fenton's "Jerusalem" with bio.

Audio of James Fenton reading "Jerusalem".

Induce the effect

To achieve the effect, become the cause. Become the cause that induces the effect. This is what happens when you focus and image. You see it, they see you see it, and so they see it. This is how every messenger speech works. That is what makes the theatron work as a seeing place.

Three epic links

Here are 3 useful links related to Bardic reading and performance:

1. What Homer may have sounded like
2. Lombardo reading Homer
3. Audio of Heaney's Beowulf

Bardic performance & related reading

The bardic tradition required a performance where the poet/singer needed to engage an audience with both a performer's and various poetic personae. As a performer, the bard was in a similar position to a poet today at a reading of his or her work. In addition, the poem (traditionally an epic) required the representation of a large number of "speakers", or characters in the poem, each possessing a distinct voice. The bard's challenge was to be fully present, engaging the audience in their world, while manifesting the world of the poem in the imagination. How did the bard hold the audience.

This is an issue we will return to. For now, spend some time immersing yourself in epic material. Spend some time reading and speaking (applying Packard's approach) epic poetry. Two good places to begin are Homer's Iliad and the Old English epic, Beowulf.

Suggested translations for Homer include those by: Robert Fagles, Richmond Lattimore, and Stanley Lombardo. Suggested translation for Beowulf is by Seamus Heaney.

Also, become familiar with the work of performers such as Benjamin Bagby who currently present epic in performance in a way close to the spirit of the original.

Kandinsky Color Theory

• Kandinsky's color theory .
• More on Kandinsky's color theory with visuals & diagrams .

The Proper Approach to a Poetic Text

It begins and ends with these 5 steps set out by William Packard:

1. Write out the text on a separate sheet of paper. Mark off all the various poetic devices -- image, sound, voice. Draw transition lines across the page, creating separate beats. Circle any "reality" words (truth / beauty / justice) for substitutions.
2. As far as possible, try to withhold your own interpretation from the text. So far you are not ready to "interpret" it -- remember that relaxation and familiarity with the form of the text are the most important things. LET THE TEXT TELL YOU.
3. DO THE TEXT ALONE, ALOUD, MANY MANY, MANY TIMES. This is the most important single step of all, and it cannot be done silently or intellectually. You must try to get the very rhythms of the text into your own bloodstream, all the sight and sound and sense values.
4. Get up and focus the text -- locate specific image areas outside yourself -- choose contact sources. If you are speaking the text to someone (primary focus), choose where that person is -- and if you refer to other image areas (secondary focus), choose where those
   areas will be. Do this as you walk through the text, just as you would walk through the blocking of any ordinary play -- only remember that you are not yet acting.
5. AT LAST: begin to ask all the acting questions: what do I want, what are the obstacles to my getting what I want, what are my given circumstances, my physical life, &c &c &c.

In the words of the French poet Valery: "as the final nuance, ask about the meaning of the text."

Remember that the challenge of a poetic text is to say what you see and see what you say.