Poetry - the power of immediacy

Back in the day (and I'm talking mid 80s to early 90s) in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone, pre-social media age, life was simple, but everything took so long to accomplish. As a performance poet, I frequented, and sometimes MC'd live poetry events at festivals. I also appeared in several bands, usually accompanied by my trusty axe (the one in this photo is a Gibson Les Paul - a set in the Big Top at Greenbelt Festival 1983). Under clear blue skies, warmed by the summer sun, we would stand on makeshift wooden stages with nothing more than a microphone and a book of poems, and hold forth to whomever was walking by. Sometimes we would garner audiences of up to a thousand people and on one occasion, I managed to blag a spot on the main stage of a major festival and performed in front of over 24 thousand people. Heady days. I wish oh I wish I could remember the names of my fellow festival fringe poets. 

Poets need feedback. All of the feedback we received for our performances and readings was received by our audience in the form of applause and an occasional comment or two. Sometimes people would write to us. I had a few letters and notes from people through the mail appreciating my poetry, and one notable complaint. One person took umbrage about one of the poems I read, called Vegetarian. She herself, she informed me, was a vegetarian, and then proceeded to berate me for the words I had written. I think if the Vegans had landed on the planet by then, she might well have claimed to be one. She was adamant and militant about her vegetarianism. 

In writing, I replied that she might have misunderstood my poetry. I was not sniping against vegetarians, but rather praising their stance, and bemoaning my lack of discipline in my own dietary practices. She replied by return of post, a huge diatribe including several printed sheets of documents that claimed the health benefits of vegetarianism. She had missed the point. Completely. This went on for a few weeks. Back and forth. Her final mail to me was a small package rather than a letter. Must have cost her a fortune to send it through the mail. At this point, I politely wrote back thanking her for her concerns, and wishing her well. This exchange took place over a couple of months. It served to inform me that some people, passionate or not about their beliefs, can sometimes be seriously wrong, but will go to any length to try to prove their point. 

Today of course, in the age of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, anyone can voice their views to anyone else, and regardless of all the drivel, vicious trolling and vacuous spam we receive, there is the power of immediacy. There is nothing quite like live poetry. During my time performing (and I hope I can resurrect that time) I had the pleasure to meet many talented individuals including luminaries such as Stewart Henderson, Steve Turner and the late great Larry Norman - all of whom I consider to be excellent poets leading lights in the poetry world. 

But I spend most of my time now online, either reading live or responding to discussions and comments on Facebook poetry groups such as Pure Poetry and two of my own groups Invisible Poets and Wheelsong Poetry Group. (Join us if you wish.) Some of the content posted is astoundingly good in quality, and I of course join in, sharing my own compositions. The beauty of these groups is that you can gain almost instant feedback on your work. It's often complementary, with an occasional comment about how it can be improved or extended. What would have taken days or even weeks back in the 80s and 90s now takes seconds, and can also be immediate through live chat and messenger systems. Oh how the world of performance poetry has changed!

Steve Wheeler, Plymouth, England

Poetry as performance

How is performance of poetry different to publishing (spoken vs written)? It's a question I have considered for years. Back in the 80s and 90s I was a performance poet (and I still occasionally perform my poems these days, usually online, but sometimes in person!) I would rock up to events such as festivals, stand at a microphone, and perform my poetry for anyone who would listen. Sometimes my audience was a few dozen people milling around at a 'poet's corner', at other times it was an audience thousands, from a main stage. I think my largest ever audience for a poetry performance was 24,000 at a festival held at Knebworth. I wasn't merely 'reading out' my poetry. I had learnt to project it, emotionally and spiritually. That may need a littler further explanation...

The words on a page can convey one kind of meaning. They can operate at a different level to the spoken word. Written poetry allows the poet to present their words in any configuration on the page. Look at the work of concrete poets such as Edwin Morgan, or the anarchic chaos created by e.e.cummings as examples. Wordplay is also easier to convey in the printed page format of poetry. The use of homophones can be maximised. It's not so easy in the spoken or performed poetry mode. One of the lines in my audio recording of Disco Floor says: 'forget your sighs... on the disco floor'. Some people assumed I meant I was referring to height or weight. (Listen to the recording here).

But the spoken word, performed poetry - has a set of nuances and inflections that the written word can never have. A comic pause, a sardonic glance at the audience - a shifting of posture or a change in vocal quality - all can add to the emotional and spiritual delivery of a piece. Sometimes I would leave out the last line of a poem, and hope for the audience to complete it. And if the audience responds to all this, it becomes a communal event. It's wonderful to see people listening to, and enjoying poetry together as a shared experience. 

Now that's what I call poetry.

Poetry, performance and communication

Back in the 1980s, when I was a host and performer on the poetry stage at Greenbelt Festival, communication wasn't quite as sophisticated as it is today. More of that in a moment. But first, read on.... 

The 1980s were a fertile time for poetry, but you could only really meet on a face-to-face basis, and so we would all travel to the festival around August bank holiday each year, keep our fingers crossed that the weather wouldn't ruin our fun, and spend four days performing our poetry to crowds sometimes in excess of a thousand people, over on the Greenbelt Fringe. We could ease a poem or three in between the bands while they set up. Yes, it was fast, frantic and furious stuff, and we learnt to adapt to just about any situation. 

This was performance poetry of course, and it was hard work, and a lot of fun. I believe that performance poetry and those live mic sessions shaped me into the writer and poet I am today.

I was even invited to read my poetry to more than 24,000 people from the main stage on one occasion. I was more nervous of the two guys who were standing in the wings of the main stage that day than I was of the huge crowd I was standing in front of. The main stage comperes were Liverpool poet Stewart Henderson and music journalist and poet Steve Turner. I subsequently got to work with Steve Turner, appearing alongside him once or twice on the tour circuit. But at the time, what meant more to me when I exited the stage (left) was not the applause from the audience, but the slap on the back and the 'well dones' from the two poets. That meant the absolute world to me as a young poet.

I mentioned communication during the 1980s. It's great today with e-mail, Facebook and all the other social media platforms, because poets and other creatives can share their work to a large audience and receive feedback almost instantly. It's wonderful to belong to a few poetry collective and communities, because everyone seems to know what you're going through when you are in a fallow period of 'writer's block' or you're going through a particularly traumatic time. Most poets are wounded healers. We use writing as catharsis to work through our own problems, but also perhaps to inspire others to do the same. Today it's miraculous to receive critical acclaim and evaluation from one's peers within the hour of posting a new piece.

Back in the 1980s it was more difficult. We needed to share our snail mail addresses. We would send printed sheets of our poetry to each other through the post, and hopefully, a week or two later we might receive a few comments back from someone, along with one or two of their poems to read in return, It was quaint, and it worked, but it had nothing of the power we have at our disposal in today's digital world.

Wish list

I thought long and hard about beefing up my act

by trying to be streetwise and removing the tact

I thought about using a drum machine

and dressing in a style that was moody and mean

I tried to show I had my finger on the pulse

with a Liverpool accent, but it came out sounding false

I tried to hit the stage like a sex machine

but that didn't work because my shirt wasn't clean

The working class hero was another ploy

but it all fell flat and I started to annoy

I wanted my persona to be witty and wise

but a leopard can't change its spots no matter how it tries

I wanted my words to be smart and incisive

but it sounded insincere and it proved to be divisive

I wanted to appeal to the nation's youth

when all I really needed was to tell the truth

Steve Wheeler © 15 December, 2016