POETRY AS PERFORMANCE

 

 

The genre of spoken word or performance poetry is unique, rather new, and very engaging. Poets involve their audiences using different techniques, from repetition to chiming in on the chorus to allowing whoops and snaps to be given during the entire performance. Performance poetry is more similar to theater than it is to poetry readings, since performance poetry engages gestural, aural, and spatial modes in addition to the linguistic mode. Because, as John Gordon writes, "current English curriculum does not adequately acknowledge the potential of poetry to make meaning through sound", this essay seeks to identify the meaning-making abilities of spoken word poetry.

 

Modes exist within any text, whether a movie poster, a friend's hilarious t-shirt, or a literature 'classic' such as Moby Dick. Modes are the ways information is presented. The information changes in both content and effect on the audience through using one or more modes. The most common mode we think of, especially in the traditional English and Writing classrooms, is linguistic, which is the use of words either spoken or written. The other three modes explored in this essay are: the aural mode, which is the use of sound; the gestural mode, which is body movement and face expression; and the spatial mode, which is the appearance of text, color, and shape within a bounded plane or area. In this exploration, the spatial mode refers to the appearance of each performance clip on the screen within the rectangular frame of the text.

 

Utilizing a variety of modes enhances the audience’s enjoyment, understanding, and takeaway of a poem in comparison to reading that poem on the page. While the words themselves are powerful and lyrical, they become imbued with a strength, beauty, and passion when voiced in the style and gestural performance of the writer. We could also refer to this concept as strengthening the rhetorical situation, or relationship, between the performer and the viewer. These poems become more authentic when one listen to them being spoken by their author, since the entire experience now becomes personal and relatable as opposed to flat and one-dimensional.

 

The professional artists Andrea Gibson and Sarah Kay utilize performance techniques that are different and that give specific meaning to their individualized poems. Kay’s “Private Parts” and Gibson’s “I Sing the Body Electric (Especially when the Power is Out)” serve as the base texts to compare and contrast in this essay.

 

 

LINGUISTIC

Sarah Kay’s performance relies primarily on the linguistic mode, using her words to shape and captivate the audience. Her words are given an overall even emphasis throughout the performance, and slight variations from her slow, steady delivery (aural mode) are used to bring attention and focus to her words (linguistic mode). In the line “We spelled ‘love’ G-I-V-E,” for example, Kay is using a clever linguistic twist to make a point about her relationship with a boy. While tone is also important in Kay’s delivery, the linguistic emphasis is most important mode used.

 

Although it isn’t particularly part of the poem, Andrea Gibson’s initial comments during the short clip of her poem “I Sing the Body Electric” build rapport with the audience. She makes a joke about how when people are sitting on all sides of her, she becomes self-concsious about her butt. She laughs along with the audience, and it’s this smile at the beginning of her piece that builds a relationship with both her live audience members and viewers online. We feel more comfortable with her because of her sense of humor, and we respond positively to her smile.

 

Phrases like “my half-tamed addictions” are so relatable for listeners; Gibson is admitting that she has a long way to go, but that it's okay. Listening to this confession changes the way listeners trust and identify with Gibson's poem. The poem comes across as genuine and authentic because these words are about her personal life.

The organization of the poems, including the loop backs to previously-explored content and repeated phrases and ideas jogs the audiences’ memory and brings it back to those initial points to make the linguistics of the piece more meaningful and interconnected.

 

 

SPATIAL 

Eye contact makes the video feel more ‘live’ because Gibson is looking all around the room.The spatial mode of the camera angle frames the size of the text much closer to her body than the frame for Gibson’s video, and Kay’s gestures stay within this small frame. The ‘space’ itself, with an audience seated on all sides of her, and the vibe of her androgynous outfit plays into her performance by making this scene feel intimate and authentic.

 

“This is my body. It is no one’s but mine.” Spatial and gestural, hugs her body strongly. Indicates the power behind these words, that the body we can see, the body of a woman who loves other women and dresses as masculine as she wants to is no one else’s body but hers.

 

Sarah Kay utilizes the spatial mode when she inserts pauses into the middle of sentences, which might be seen visually on a page as stanza breaks or blank space. An example of this is when she says, “by handing over all the private… parts of me.” She does not mean body parts in this line. She uses the same words “private parts” but indicates that these are, instead, the pieces of her inner self that are given away in place of physical intimacy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kay scrunches her nose on “I gave him my elbows,” which serves to emphasize that elbows are not private body parts. Her parents never forbade the giving-away of elbows, so this moment conveys innocence and obedience. When she explains that secrets and gifts of physical touch were nectarines, she uses facial expression to mimic the reaction that one might have if a precious nectarine had to be tossed out because it was bruised.

 

 

AURAL

Gibson uses faint background music from about halfway through her piece until the end. This instrumental accompaniment builds tension and engages the audience in another way.

 

Gibson’s performance is full of an intensity and emotional passion that is absent from most of Kay’s performance, but this doesn’t necessarily make either a more powerful poem to listen to. Gibson speaks quickly, which prevents listeners from catching every line during the first viewing. An advantage of posting these as online videos on the platform Youtube allows viewers to rewind sections if they missed a section. However, some audience members might be frustrated by her speed and how she gasps for air. As a live video, there is no editing the aural track for a clean take. All the gasps stay in the performance upload on Youtube.

 

Kay's performance is much more even-toned than Gibson's, and this allows us to instead focus on her use of the linguistic and gestural modes as meaning-making techniques, rather than on overly-dramatic word pronunciation and a "rushed" effect which are felt in the desperation of Gibson's performance. Both performances differ from normal poetry or poetry on the page by allowing listeners to engage with the poems in more ways and to gain more insight into what certain lines might be getting at, whereas the lack of the aural mode in written poetry maintains an absence of those experiences.

 

 

GESTURAL

Kay also uses facial expression to convey meaning, humor, and insight to listeners. She raises her eyebrows, frowns, shakes her head, and opens her eyes wider to emphasize and reflect different emotions. At the beginning of her piece, when she says, “always a little brother in the next room,” she both emphasizes with a hand motion that there is a little brother over there and makes a facial expression that invites the audience to also remember those times and how stressful they were.

            

When she says, “And the places he never saw, the ones my parents had labeled ‘private parts,’” Kay shifts her eyes from side to side and furrows her eyebrows, indicating both disapproval and a guilty suspicion that someone might try to steal or take these private parts away. Kay’s performance differs from Gibson’s by her freezing of different positions. Kay doesn’t gesture then let her hands fall to her side. She gestures and then freezes it, continuing to speak even if the subject has moved on from that particular gesture. It isn’t until she completes a new gesture requiring that hand that she unfreezes it. This serves to keep the audience’s memory focused on those particular phrases which she draws out in gestural representation.

 

In another line, Kay says, “We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale to my inhale and back. We could’ve survived underwater or outer space.” With these lines on a page, there is far less emotion than is felt in both the tone and gesture of her performance, convincing viewers that she could have done these things and that this way of breathing is possible.

 

MULTIMODALITY

The words themselves are more powerful performed and presented in a multimodal fashion, such as a live performance recorded and uploaded to Youtube. Listening to the performer’s inflectional and emotion allows viewers to get more meaning out of each piece. While Gibson’s gestures leave us feeling excited and enthusiastic, Kay’s performance leaves us in contemplation and feeling contented about the beauty of love.

 

Using this genre instead of, or in addition to, written poetry changes the poets’ experiences presenting by allowing them to convey more meaning and emotion to their listeners than they can just using the linguistic mode in a written, hard-copy text. Although more time is invested in preparation, this genre can be more rewarding perhaps, because they get to interact with their audience and fans rather than have a distant relationship with publishing a book and consumers purchasing it to read in private, rather than in collaboration or in experience with the writer. Performance poetry allows audience members and the poet to feel a range of emotions, enhancing the experience and empathy for both sides.

 

 

WORKS CITED

Gibson, Andrea. "I Will Sing the Body Electric (Especially When the Power's Out)." 2013. YouTube. Uploaded by stastie15.

 

Gordon, John. "Verbal energy: attending to poetry." English in Education, 2004. 38: 92–103. Wiley Online Library.

 

Kay, Sarah. "Private Parts." 2015. Button Poetry. YouTube.