ENGLISH 338 - Oral Literature

Please write a 1-2 page “thick description” of a poetry performance. You may take a whole performance or one piece as your object. Try to observe and articulate a full description that takes in the text, its delivery, and audience response. (Passages in Chris Beech’s article are a good model, as his description manages not only to evoke the moment but maps the relationships and dynamics amongst the players for us.)

You may choose any oral performance to describe: live or documented. Here are a few starting places for documented performances that you might use –

1. Say it Loud (Black Arts Movement clips)
2. Favorite Poems Pinsky project: non-authors read
3. Slam Nation 2000
4. Bernstein’s Talk To Me
5. Somebody Blew Up America - Baraka
6. Ginsberg Sings to Buckley
7. Kerouac on Steve Allen
   

Please add anything else you find of interest as a comment.