[Don Jones]

I like Mr. Dennis' use of the visual screen set up behind him in order to have the text of his poems projected while he is intoning them. Let's face it: most poetry readings are boring because most poets aren't actors and don't know how to read/recite poetry in a way that truly engages the audience.

There are exceptions to this judgment so don't stone me, but you know what I mean. Felix Dennis does a wonderful job performing his poems, going beyond what would be necessary in a poetry reading. Helping the audience follow along with you while you speak as your own words are projected for the audience to read is a good idea and a more audience-friendly one. In fact, it could prove fascinating for poetry that is much more interesting than Mr. Dennis'.

An oral/visual presentation for aural/visual consumption would have the added virtue of being democratic. Some people can't take in poetry no matter how well intoned. Why leave them out to be bored? Showing them what your telling them, in this case, is quite helpful and for any writer in the audience it should prove irresistable if the poet is worth the trouble.

Now as for the music Mr. Dennis has playing in the background while he's reading . . . .

Don

[Jayne Osborn]

Don,
I really agree with you, regarding: I like Mr. Dennis' use of the visual screen set up behind him in order to have the text of his poems projected while he is intoning them.
Having been in the audience, just a few feet away from Felix Dennis, on two occasions, I can vouch for the effectiveness of this. The sound and lighting at his readings is extremely well done, and highly professional. OK, you may have a point about some of the music...!

People (I'm one) keep going along to watch him perform because it's a pleasurable experience. It's not all brilliant poetry (is anyone's?) but there's enough merit in it for Dennis to have quite a following.

He's mega-rich, of course, but there's nothing ostentatious or OTT about his readings. The ones I've been to have been in big marquees, and you sit on white plastic garden chairs, but that screen - with the words (and lovely images) projected while he reads - really works. He's "worth the trouble", IMO.

After one of his performances he signed a book for me and here's a pic of us:

Jayne

[Chris Childers]

It's interesting to hear about the pictures and words on the screen; I've certainly found that useful in giving talks, though am mildly skeptical in the context of poetry. I'll have to watch the TED talk, and if I got a chance, I would go see this guy (this thread is the first I've heard of him). I may find myself giving readings of ancient poetry to high school students and non-classicists in the not-too-distant future, & any tricks to improve the presentation would be well worth it. "Depth" may be my favorite topic to yammer on about but I'm as sensible as anyone to Mary's advice above about talking to your audience, not past them.

Though as for that, I recall a lecture by an astronomer where she repeated what is apparently standard advice for addressing scientists: include one thing in your presentation which everybody understands, one thing that only specialists understand, and one thing that nobody understands. There is some sense to that, though I might adapt it to a poetry reading as follows: include something entertaining, that meets them where they are (a few laughs go a long way); something instructive and interesting but unfamiliar; and something difficult, but worth the challenge, and hopefully sublime and/or powerful. Which seems to be carrying me towards Cicero's saying that the best sort of orator "teaches, delights, and moves" his audience (docere, delectare, permovere). In other words, "Depth" is good at readings, but not only depth. Even Wilbur always closes with his children's poetry.

Chris

[Mary McLean]

I absolutely agree that clarity is not the only virtue in poetry. And there's no problem with slipping in elements that might lose some of your audience, as long as you're aware that you're doing so. Some poems are unavoidably aimed at different people. I give very different talks at scientific conferences vs addressing groups of fundraisers from the local charity shop. And people are perfectly entitled to write exclusively exclusive poetry. I might even like it. My favourite standup comic is Stewart Lee, who deliberately includes abstruse jokes and then berates segments of the audience who aren't keeping up.

I kind of like the idea of AV during readings, I'm not sure. It would make it more like my scientific talks. It's harder to make eye contact when people are looking at a screen. And it's distracting to have text out of sync with speech, like watching TV with the subtitles on.

[John Whitworth]

Don, Geoffrey Hill is certainly not at one end of anything. Have you tried The Cambridge Poets? They are REALLY unintelligible.

[Don Jones]

John,

One woman's accessibility is another woman's incomprehensibility.

Hill was chosen arbitrarily to make a point. Again, as I stated, you can fill in your candidate. I mean no disparagement of Mr. Hill, a genius to be sure, only that you really have to work with his work. No problem when I'm not in a lazy mood.

Besides, I rather enjoy this by J.H. Prynne (a snippet):

the gentility of a shell, so
fragile, so beautifully
shallow in the past; I
hardly remember
the case hardened
but brittle

Mind you, the left margin is all wrong in this cut and paste job. It is decidedly flushed towards the right margin with a jagged uneven left margin.

There's also Muldoon, whose poetry at times exasperates me and at other times thrills me.

[John Whitworth]

Muldoon OK. Hill, sort of OK, Prynne beyond my bloody pay grade. I think Dennis is OK but I also think that I am better. Where's the money, then?

[Barbara Baig]

John--As the financial types always say, "You need money to make money." If Dennis is making money from his poetry (is he?), it's because he has the money, as I said earlier, to promote the heck out of his work and to put on those multi-media shows. (By the way, he also sells a book on his site about how to make money.)

Some of you might like to know about a book called "The Colour of Saying," an anthology of the poems by other people that Dylan Thomas used to include in his readings. They are mostly the clear, "accessible," often witty or funny--"populist"--poems we've been talking about here, and they must have made a nice change for his audiences from his own poems. As any experienced performing singer or songwriter will tell you, 'ya gotta' mix it up!

Barbara

[Mary McLean]

Sorry if I’m flogging a dead horse here, but I wanted to say a bit about the Wendy Cope poem. I won’t do a thorough textual analysis, partly because it doesn’t seem necessary for such a simple poem and partly because I’m not very good at it, but I wanted to share what I think makes it work.

Cope is often praised for her humanity, whatever that means. I don’t know if this poem is strictly autobiographical, but it gives us a portrait of a very real man and a very real relationship. She’s not portraying an ideal hero, and she’s not saying ‘Bloody men!’ She’s relating the foibles with a wry sense of humour and a lot of warm affection.

I wouldn’t argue that accessible poetry like this is objectively superior to ‘deep’ work, but I do take issue when people argue the converse. I think it bugs me partly because of the resonance with arguments in literary fiction, where ‘women’s literature’ is often sneered at. Like light verse, it is often concerned with personal relationships and the psyche, and these are seen by the establishment as less worthy topics than metaphysics or battles or whatever men write about.

Clearly there isn’t a firm gender divide in poetry – plenty of men write light verse and plenty of women write heavy. But I think value judgements about poetry have the danger of being clouded by these issues.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Felix Dennis is a multi-millionaire whose fortune, I believe, is primarily the fruit of his magazine publishing empire. One of his best-known journals is Maxim, a lad mag that’s roughly comparable to Playboy except that the women aren’t actually, you know, naked. I’m probably grasping an all too easy trope here, but his poems (what I’ve read of them) seem to me to be roughly comparable to real poetry in much the same way.