~ Performance Poetry ~

“Methought I saw my late espoused Saint…” by John Milton

On 3 June, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Documentary, Performance Poetry
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Sonnet 23 by John Milton

Recited by Ian Richardson, from the 1984 TV series “Six Centuries of Verse,” directed by Richard Mervyn

If I Controlled the Internet by Rives

On 11 May, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Poem by Rives, from TED (video link)

Tiara by Mark Doty

On 23 April, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Poem by Mark Doty

From Taylor Mali’s Page Meets Stage reading series at the Bowery Poetry club in NYC.

African-American folk poetry: gandy dancers

On 7 April, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Documentary, interviews, Performance Poetry
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Excerpt of a film by Barry Dornfeld and Maggie Holtzberg-Call

Gandy dancers were the guys who straightened track. A YouTube preview from a full-length documentary (not embeddable) on Folkstreams.net.

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Meta-Free-Phor-All

On 1 April, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Miscellaneous, Performance Poetry
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The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Meta-Free-Phor-All: Shall I Nail Thee to a Summer’s Day?
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Something for April Fool’s Day — and the first day of (Inter-)National Poetry Month — from a king of fools. This episode of the Colbert Report aired on April 19, 2007. Colbert seems to genuinely like poetry, and has interviewed a number of poets on his show. I like the way this skit plays off the misconception popular with people who “just don’t understand poetry”: that a poem (or metaphor) is basically a code with one correct solution. I’m also impressed by Robert Pinksy’s stage presence and acting skills.

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Cassandra, Iraq by C. K. Williams

On 26 March, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Interview videos, Performance Poetry
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C. K. Williams talks about the language of politics and the Iraq war, and reads his poem “Cassandra, Iraq” in a video from Big Think.

http://youtu.be/UQn2Y1Z9XHA

Here’s another interview with Williams in which he addresses more general concerns, also concluding with a reading of “Cassandra, Iraq.” This one was directed and produced by Mel Stuart for the Academy of American Poets.

I Hang Myself by Saghi Ghahraman

On 12 March, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance, Musical settings, Performance Poetry, Videopoems
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Poem by Saghi Ghahraman, translated from the Farsi by Niloufar Talebi — read it here

Video created by The Translation Project and Invision Productions for the DVD, Midnight Approaches
Narration by Niloufar Talebi
Dance by Larissa Verduzen
Percussion by royal hartigan

I discovered this organization and its very fine videos completely by accident last night — just doing keyword searches on YouTube. It’s not entirely clear who the performers are on this particular film; the credits for the DVD as a whole are at the bottom of this page.

Iran has one of the richest poetry traditions in the world, so I’m very pleased to be able to feature some contemporary Iranian poets here, thanks to The Translation Project.

Patricia Smith at the Lizard Lounge

On 2 March, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Patricia Smith is the reigning queen of slam, with four National Poetry Slam individual championship titles under her belt, and she’s a very fine poet on the page as well — her most recent book, Blood Dazzler, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. So who better to kick off the spoken word category here? And with the inclusion of the Jeff Robinson Trio, this performance takes us back to the 1950s jazz-club roots of the modern American poetry reading tradition. My only gripe with this video is that it doesn’t supply the title of the poem.

For more on the Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam and the Jeff Robinson Trio, see their website. They’re in Cambridge, Massachusetts, apparently, and they do this every Sunday. For more videos, see their YouTube channel.

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