With the winter poetry readings season now underway again in the UK, I'm once more left wondering whether poets get the audiences they deserve – or if audiences get the poets they deserve?
Poetry readings are a form of live literature, right? In which case, why are the audiences so dead?
As with many stories, there are two sides to this tale: In the last few weeks I've heard audience members complaining about poets muttering into their mikes. I've heard of audience members being bounced out of poetry readings for have the temerity to criticise the readings. And I've also attended readings where all the poets (even first-timers on open mic) have given cracking performances yet been greeted with tepid or no applause.
Seems to me the issue is that poets and their audiences don't know how to interact with each other. For example, with stand-up comedy, you either laugh or jeer after a joke – and the comedian also knows that somebody is bound to heckle them. With rock music, its the same deal: cheers for a good performance, jeers for a poor performance. But live literature?
Now obviously I'm not suggesting poetry audiences should take things to the extreme we saw at a recent Guns 'n' Roses gig in Dublin, when the band were pelted with bottles of urine. (Bottles of urine? Where did they come from? Do people pack them with them before they go to the show? Or maybe they now have a franchise selling them to punters Piss Bottles 'R' Us perhaps?) But maybe they could be a little more demonstrative than they are at the moment?
For the poor poet giving the reading, the lack of reaction must be disconcerting, as they don't know whether their work is being well received, hated or met with bland indifference? Performers do need some kind of feedback – good, bad or otherwise. Yet, most of the time we just get that weird poetry audience hummm-type sigh which, frankly, half the time sounds a bit smug and complacent. A kind of 'oh look how clever we are, we can appreciate the hidden depths of this poem' self-congratulatory tone.
There again, some – correction, most – poets don't help themselves by the way they schedule and time their readings. They read one good poem then immediately launch into another one before the audience has had a chance to digest and applaud the first. Or, they do an upbeat number and immediately follow it by a words-to-slit-your-wrists-by downbeat item.
And, what is it with poets endlessly flicking through their chapbooks mid-performance, apparently uncertain what to read next? Don't they ever prepare for their readings?
Perhaps both audience and poets alike should bring along urine bottles and throw them at each other? Me, I'm now going to cheer, heckle, jeer, boo, tut-tut and/or applaud every poem I hear read – anything but hummm them!
Opinion: live literature – dead audiences ?
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