tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post5177476566813182035..comments2024-01-24T06:50:01.683-06:00Comments on Samizdat Blog: So a Poet Walks Into a Bar: The Poetry Reading as Rhetorical SituationArchambeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-25577349731422111682011-10-19T09:37:34.191-05:002011-10-19T09:37:34.191-05:00I agree with your basic thesis here. It is in alig...I agree with your basic thesis here. It is in alignment with my own experience. I've played jazz/poetry gigs opening for the Last Poets, for example, and been involved with Slam scene early on. (In its tentacles spreading out to Wisconsin and Minneapolis from Chicago.)<br /><br />I'm pretty much opposed to the Slam scene at this point, however, as it has narrowed poetry performance to only one or two kinds of poetry and/or performance. Most of the poems I've heard at Slams don't work as poems on the page—and I tend to believe that a poem needs to work both aloud and on the page. The scene has become dominated by hip-hop-style performance. I haven't seen a Slam lately that wasn't basically a rap concert. There isn't much room for a wider variety of both poetry and performance styles. <br /><br />So for whatever reason, I think it's become self-limiting—but paradoxically that means its rhetorical importance, following your thesis, is all the more foregrounded. The purpose of Slams seems to have become social rescue of creative kids from bad living conditions, getting them off the streets, out of the bad home or school life, and lighting a fire for them to hold onto as they go forward in life—and that's all to the good (my personal feelings about the quality of the poetry aside).Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.com