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Unread 04-12-2012, 01:51 PM
Jayne Osborn's Avatar
Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Middle England
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Default Ann's bugbear

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Does anyone else have strong views on my own bugbear - the person who attends a poetry reading with the published volume in hand and follows the text with a finger?
Ann,

I've only ever done it once, but the circumstances were exceptional. Do you remember Steve Bucknell's long-running, wonderful thread about R P Lister? Here it is

I went to the recitation - not a reading - of this amazing gentleman's poems (he's nearly 100 and he was there). The actor Donald Pelmear, who recited the poems from The Idle Demon, was marvellous; he remembered almost every poem in it, word for word.

I simply had to follow him with the book in my hands, I was so astounded. (But it's what actors do; how in the world does anyone learn every word of a Shakespeare play?) I know I couldn't. Just as well that I never aspired to become an actress!

Jayne
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