Second Literary Event: Poetry Out Loud

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Poetry Out Loud performance/competition. The performers were introduced by a speaker who described the event as an attempt to revisit the classic tradition of the oral performance of poetry. I sat back in my chair, expecting to enjoy a night of simply listening to good poetry. In other words, I expected to be moved by the poems themselves, whether familiar or unfamiliar. I did not expect to be so captivated by the performers, who in my mistaken opinion would act more as vehicles for great writers than true artists themselves.

I was blown away by the performance of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” which was also the winning performance. The reader managed to wrestle intense emotional power from the poem, which is already extremely emotionally heavy. Sitting in the audience, it felt like she was literally spitting her words at us. I felt as though we were all involved in this twisted father-daughter relationship, as though we were a third party of innocent victims attacked by her words. So real was the poem’s meaning for me that I almost felt uncomfortable sitting in the Terrace Room of Margaret Jacks as the reader listed with frenzied passion the names of concentration camps or spoke of suicide. It seemed absurd, for Sylvia Plath’s world had been made more real than our own. 

The second-place performance also managed to add a layer to the poem through oral performance that would not have been there otherwise. He read a simple poem about a mouth-organ. The poem, like the instrument, would normally not catch much attention. The reader, however, managed to accomplish the same feat as the Plath reader, incorporating the audience into the reading experience. So familiar and wise was his voice that I felt as though we were all participants in a campfire dialogue, transported once again out of Margaret Jacks. I could not help but feel that the reader was literally this small instrument brought to life, personified in a Stanford grad student. Again, the suspension of reality was surprising. 

Attending Poetry Out Loud made me think a lot about the significance of voice in a work of fiction. My favorite aspect of the two performances I described was that I as an audience member felt like an active participant in the emotional content of the poem. I imagined myself a member of a real, genuine world. In a story, to give a reader this kind of power and freedom is certainly difficult. As a writer it would be tempting to use voice to tell readers what they should derive from plot or character, but this acts to make their experience less rewarding. The parallel to this in Poetry Out Loud might be a performer’s temptation to resort to a mere caricature of the poem’s author. Readers and audience members do not want the words shoved down their throats. It is much more exciting as a reader to be allowed to engage with the words and decide for yourself what they mean.