POETRY RECITALS

At any given time in history the literary scene will seem confused to those who are living through it, and it is the selectivity of posterity that makes the pattern and orders of eminence appear clearly defined to the retrospective view. It is fairly safe to say that, at the present time, there is an especially bewildering complexity of poetic tendencies, of kinds of poetry being written, of warring factions, of ways of presenting, criticising and teaching poetry, and of conflicting beliefs about the role of the poet in society. 
Very broadly speaking, the present debate in contemporary poetry concerns the reciprocal mistrust and disapproval shown by the seriously committed 'literary' writers, whose poems are intended to be printed and read on the page, and the ‘popular’, performing poets who, while they will probably publish their verses in magazines and collections, are happier declaiming them to an audience. Of course, this division is far from absolute.
The practice of promoting public poetry readings has been steadily increasing over the past twenty years or so, in many different forms. Small literary societies in provincial towns conduct them in village halls or the sitting rooms of their members; schools and colleges invite poets to read and talk to audiences of students; arts festivals often advertise poetry readings by well-known authors on their programmes. The consequences of all these events, and of poets being more or less obliged to become public performers, are manifold and of uncertain benefit to them as mists.
For the ‘pop’ poets, whose work has been composed expressly for the purpose of recital to live audiences, the issue is plain. They can only profit from public performance. Their verses are often very simple in both form and content, and can be assimilated at a single hearing; it is on the printed page that the deficiencies of thought, technique and imagination become clear. Poets who are dedicated to their craft, and are doing their best to continue and develop what is finest in the traditions of poetry - which involves compressing the maximum amount of passion, thought, wit and vision into the smallest possible space and achieving rhythmic effects of great variety and subtlety — are unlikely to be appreciated by an audience which is probably encountering their work for the first time. The danger here is, not that they will be tempted to emulate the content and style of the entertainers, but that they might, in the effort to achieve instant communication, read only their most readily accessible work which is quite likely to be their slightest and least characteristic. 
Attendance at poetry reading cannot be a substitute for reading poetry on the page, though it can be an enjoyable and instructive adjunct. To hear good poets read their work aloud, even if they are not accomplished public speakers, is a valuable guide as to where the precise emphases are to be placed, but it is desirable that the audience should either follow the reading with the text before them or have a prior knowledge of the poems being spoken. The principal justification for popular recitals of poetry, where the readings are sometimes interspersed with musical items (jazz and poetry used to be a very popular mixture), is that audiences will come to associate poetry with pleasure and not feel that it is an art available only to an initiated minority.