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Performance Poetry and Theory

Performance Poetry and Academic Theory in the Trenches: Suggestions for a necessary Dialogue

by Cornelia Gräbner

Introduction

The contact between members of the academy and those involved in the performance poetry scene has often times been less than friendly. On the one hand, many members of the academy refuse to take performance poetry seriously. On the other hand, many of those involved in the performance poetry scene dismiss academics and academic analysis. By now, both parties are deeply entrenched in their positions. As an academic working on performance poetry I find this situation regrettable. Our different positions are not mutually exclusive but complementary. In order to clear the ground for a new dialogue between academic scholars and those involved in the performance poetry scene I will address some positions and contentions that in my view have made communication between the two fields difficult. I will do so by analysing a discussion between two academic theorists on the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson, and by engaging with comments on the academy made by several writers from the performance poetry scene. Hopefully these clarifications can make communication more transparent and productive.

First of all I want to clarify some elements of my terminology. I make a difference between literary criticism, academic theory, and non-academic theory.

Literary criticism evaluates and discusses literary texts according to standards that are socially and/or academically approved, using a specific methodology. The problem with some practices of academic criticism is that they tend not to question their own standards. Therefore, literary critics often reject new and innovative art forms that question precisely the standards according to which literary criticism operates; the performance of poetry is one of these art forms.

Literary theory is in some respects a response to the uncritical attitude of criticism towards its own standards and methodology. Literary theory focuses on understanding the structures that inform the writing and reading of literary and critical texts. Recently literary and cultural theory often times interact in the practice of literary criticism. I use the term academic theory to refer to such interdisciplinary practices.

Non-academic theory in this particular case is written by people who are involved in a cultural practice, in this case, the performance of poetry. Non-academic theory does not adhere to the rules of academic rigor but seeks to understand, explain and justify the practice of performing poetry from within the group of people who are involved in it and not from outside of it.

These different discourses function according to different rules and pursue different aims. I suggest that they could complement each other in an attempt to develop a better understanding of the performance of poetry and its cultural impact.

Poetry as a Cultural Practice

The discussion between Kevin McGuirk and Marjorie Perloff on the work of Linton Kwesi Johnson is informed by some of the attitudes that make a dialogue between people that are involved in the poetry performance scene and academics so difficult. The discussion took place in a book entitled “New Definitions of Lyric”. The book contains an article by Kevin McGuirk on Tony Harrison and Linton Kwesi Johnson. In this article McGuirk argues that Johnson develops a model of subjectivity based on a relationship to history that is unusual in traditional European lyric:

The immersion of the lyric “I” in the rhythm of the poem enacts the subject’s immersion in history: in rhythm and in history, or in the conflation of the two described but the phrase “bass history.” So if, as Peter Hitchcock has observed, the question generating Johnson’s poetry is not the Romantic “who am I?” [. . . .] but “who are we?” this is because Johnson does not conceive his subjectivity outside historical communal struggle.

In the case of Johnson’s poetry, the reggae rhythm that comes from music becomes a poetic device that determines, expresses and negotiates the speaker’s connection to his community and to the communal history. This point is very important because in the context of literary theory it has three major implications:

1) We have to diversify our understanding of how poetic subjectivity is constructed in the poem. The meaning of the reggae rhythm is culturally determined. This means that the rhythm of Johnson’s poetry is the rhythm of his own speech and simultaneously, the speech rhythm of his community. His poetic and historical subjectivity is constructed through the interaction of the two. The search for an individual “I” does not stand in contradiction to the search for a communal “I”; the individual and the communal are facets of the same entity. Such a notion of subjectivity is extremely difficult to conceptualize in the context of the Western tradition of lyric subjectivity. It has almost no predecessors.

2) We have to admit music, sounds, vernaculars, accents and similar devices used by the performance of poetry as poetic devices. This means that we have to develop a mode of reading that allows us to address these devices as elements of the poem, not as additions to it.

3) We have to read poetry as a cultural practice. Johnson’s poetry cannot be read separately from his culture and the history of his culture. The reggae rhythm as signifying element of the poem makes such a reading impossible. However, many literary critics still feel that the cultural dimension of poetry is “not our area”, i.e. that it is the area of historians or political scientists but not of literary critics. They still argue that the quality of the poem is developed only within the self-enclosed entity of the poem and not also in its engagement with the world around it.

These three most important points by themselves suggest some fundamental changes for the methodology we, the academics, currently use to analyse poetry.

In the end of the volume Marjorie Perloff replies to the points made in the various essays of the collection. She pays particular attention to McGuirk and Johnson. In a discussion of lyric subjectivity she reads Johnson against Blake’s “London” and Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”. She argues that their performance of lyric subjectivity does not disconnect subjectivity from its political and social surroundings but that the two Romantics perform their resistance against social norms in different terms. Whereas racial and classist oppression are topics in Johnson’s poetry, Blake and Wordsworth define their subjectivities in resistance to the Church. In her reading of Johnson’s poetry, Perloff focuses on the words of the poem; she is critical of Johnson’s use of vernacular which does not add profundity to his “fairly flat and one-dimensional rhetoric” (253) and “excessive plain speaking” (254).

I disagree with Perloff’s reading because she reads Johnson against a Romantic tradition that in my opinion cannot be applied to Johnson’s situation. Johnson’s poetry evokes many diverse traditions and reading his performance of subjectivity against those of Blake and Wordsworth excludes important elements of his poetry from the analysis. The same goes for Perloff’s failure to include the sonic dimension of the poem into her analysis. Subjected to such a reduction of its layers of signification Johnson’s poetry must seem one-dimensional. Perloff’s reading is not receptive to the impact that a radically changed social, cultural and political situation has on poetry.

However, Perloff does something that many academic critics do not do. She read (though probably did not listen to) Johnson’s poetry and took it and McGuirk’s reading of it seriously enough to respond to them in writing. In doing so, she makes her position clear and contestable. Many academic critics do not go as far as that in their habitual dismissal of performance poetry. They dismiss the performance of poetry in personal conversation without clarifying the reasons for their dismissal. Such a response is truly maddening for those from within the performance poetry scene because it cannot be contested.

I understand their frustration in the face of an attitude like Perloff’s and that of all those unnamed critics who do not share her professionality. But as an academic theorist who is arguing against such an attitude I find the response of some people from within the performance poetry scene to academic theory equally frustrating. They employ a sniper-tactic of dismissing academic analysis altogether if academics do not provide uncritical approval. This attitude is just as unproductive and as hard to pin down as academic arrogance. In the book The Spoken Word Revolution by Mark Eleveld many of the authors of the essays engage in such sniper tactics. Let me give two short examples.
Terry Jacobus writes about the Beat and Slam movement:

[. . . .] unlike some of the pomposity of the academy, it brought poetry back to the street in massive doses. Through bouts and slams, Chicago was at the root of a performance poetry revolution, giving a huge adrenaline shot in the arm to an art form that touches youth from a different angle, and gets poetry followers and activists involved in an engaging atmosphere. (89)

Jacobus is accusing the academic analysis (and presentation and/or teaching?) of poetry of “pomposity” without specifying what he means by that. I can think of a number of pompous habits and traditions within the academy but none of them is related to poetry, and those that might be are not particular to the academy. Hence, I cannot defend the institution I work in against Jacobus’ accusation. Neither can I agree with him. What is really troubling about his argument, however, is the discursive situation he creates. He suggests that bringing poetry back to the streets is a value in itself, that performance poetry is a revolutionary art form, and that it connects “poetry followers” and activists. The metaphorically charged language in which he makes these suggestions creates a discursive situation in which disagreement has ideological implications. If I question or criticize any of the practices or the quality of slam poetry I will by default come off as anti-revolutionary, as elitist, and as a defendant of poetry’s ivory tower. But as an academically trained, critically thinking and left-wing individual I claim the right to doubt whether bringing poetry back to the streets is a value in itself, to question the revolutionary potential of any type of poetry (language is an important tool, but the revolution can only be made by people through taking action that exceeds language), and to critically engage with tendencies in performance poetry that I consider to be counterproductive for a revolution or rebellion (such as the frequent – and frequently celebrated – protagonism of the poet which taps into notions of authority that replicate conventional power structures). I want to question how useful it is to involve poetry followers and activists in an engaging atmosphere that in my experience usually – not always – leads to a lot of talk and nothing else. These questions are useful especially if we are interested in exploring the relationship between poetic language and political action. But I do not feel that writers like Jacobus allow me to raise these questions without implicitly typecasting me as a reactionary.

Another tendency among defendants of performance poetry in their engagement with academics is to shoot themselves in the foot by simplifying the poetry they want to promote. Luis Rodriguez writes:

[. . . .] young people in the South Bronx and Compton, with far fewer resources than most of us, have recreated word usage into a hip hop culture, proving the language is always alive. Too often, though, these young people are considered untalented because they lack the subtleties, the so-called fight for layered meaning. But look again – often without schooling in the language arts they seem to be more in tune with present events than most professional poets, let alone journalists. (210)

I would argue that many of the young people that he talks about do not lack the subtleties for layered meaning. They only use different modes of expression, integrating sound, music and other poetic devices that are usually considered to come from outside of the poem’s text. The academy does not yet have the methodology to analyse these poetic devices, but that does not mean that those who use them lack subtlety . Furthermore, I do not think that “being in tune with present events” makes anyone a poet or a good poet or that in the context of poetry it is a value in itself. Poetry is still about the exploration of words and about how people use words to relate to their surroundings. If a poem uncritically taps into and repeats set discourses I do not see why it should have poetic value simply because it might give an acute analysis of present events.

In many of the essays collected in The Spoken Word Revolution I sense the demand that academics should reaffirm the principles and practices of performance poetry and slam poetry in the name of shared political ideals that are frequently announced by the authors of the articles as uncontestable truths. However, academic theorists are not there for uncritical affirmation; we are dedicated to critical analyses, even more emphatically so when we are committed to ideals like equality, justice and democracy. The deal is this: If we take performance poetry seriously then we will engage with it seriously.

Performance Poetry and its Theories: A Mutual Challenge?
I have tried to indicate how literary theory and performance poetry can be a mutual challenge for each other if they engage in an honest dialogue that “does not include arrogance in its principles”, to use an expression coined by a political writer. Both art and theory are concerned with interpreting our realities, though they do so from very different perspectives. Academic theory uses rigorous methodologies that are being justified through critical enquiry and the permanent reinvestigation of their applicability (and not only through tradition, as some erroneously assume). Through the use of these methodologies we seek to make ways of “meaning making” and of reality construction obvious, transparent and therefore, changeable. The performance of poetry is a challenge to the methodologies we have used so far to read poetry. It demonstrates that our realities and the ways to understand them and engage with them have changed. Processes like globalization and migration have added new dimensions to our realities, and performance poetry is one of the art forms that explores new ways of addressing them. Academic theory needs to respond to the challenges posed by the performance of poetry by developing the methodologies that are necessary to frame performed poetry within the bigger picture of social, cultural and political developments. Through such methodologies we can contribute analyses that provide food for thought and new challenges to the practitioners of performance poetry.

References

Jacobus, Terry, 2004, “Poetic Pugilism.” 81-89 in Eleveld, Mark (ed.), The Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, HipHop & The Poetry of a New Generation. Naperville: Sourcebooks

Jeffreys, Mark, 1995, “Ideologies of Lyric: A Problem of Genre in Contemporary Anglophone Poetics.”196-205 in PMLA 110:2, March

Mc Guirk, Kevin, 1998, “’All Wi Doin’: Tony Harrison, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and the Cultural Work of Lyric in Postwar Britain.” 49-76 in Jeffreys, Mark (ed.), New Definitions of Lyric: Theory, Technology, and Culture. New York and London: Garland Publishing.

Perloff, Marjorie, 1998, “A Response.” 245-256 in Jeffreys, Mark (ed.), New Definitions of Lyric: Theory, Technology, and Culture. New York and London: Garland Publishing.

Rodriguez, Luis J., 2004, “Crossing Boundaries, Crossing Cultures: Poetry, Performance, and the New American Revolution.” 208-212 in Eleveld, Mark (ed.), The Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, HipHop & The Poetry of a New Generation. Naperville: Sourcebooks

© Cornelia Gräbner

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Performance Poetry and Theory

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