Life & Death in the Open Section - the art of the poetry reading

One of the best venues for poetry readings in Australia was the Resistance Center in Abercrombie Street, a place run by the Young Socialists. They'd charge five bucks at the door, fill a relatively small but cosy room with about 150 people, then serve spaghetti, bread and red wine. Everybody sat round long tables with white tableclothes, enjoying the food, drink and discussion. It was like everybody knew each other. By the time the plates were cleared - around ten o'clock - the reading started; and they were always great readings. It would seem that listening and digesting go very well together, especially when lubricated with a spot of red.

I also support all kinds of experiments in the area of the poetry reading, though I'm not very keen on the indiscriminate mix of music and poetry. A poem either has music or it doesn't. If it does, bongo drums and guitars can be extremely intrusive; if it doesn't, all the symphony orchestras in the world won't matter. Poetry which is specifically written to be performed with music is another matter.

There are some poetic experiments I have found totally absorbing. In Melbourne, Australia, at the Victorian Poetry Centre, they do a thing called "Hot+Cross Poets", which is a reading featuring two poets "in dialogue", where the dialogue is composed of their own poems. One poet reads, and then the other poet responds to the poem by reading a poem that he/she feels answers or adds to the poem that was just first. The poets are expected to explain - in whatever way they feel appropriate - the connection of the poem they are reading to the poem they are responding to. There is also much interjection and audience participation at this event, with the audience voting for which poet they believed had the best and most appropriate or imaginative responses.

The poetry-reading-as-play is another form that is worthy of further experimentation. As outlined in another article in Suite101.com's PERFOMANCE POETRY pages (Call It Poetry/Tonight), a group of kindred poet souls gets together and makes a play out of selected poems from the body of their work, and presents these poems in the context of a situation involving themselves as actor/poets. In short, a play, with a beginning, middle and end (though not necessarily in that orer). The situations are endless. The one I was

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