Analyzing a Performance

Some tips on what to do before, during, and after reading

poetry in public.

Daniel Nester, The College of Saint Rose, 2006-2011

DisclaimerThis is not a comprehensive introduction to the reading or performance of a poem, nor is it necessarily an objective one. There are many ways to perform a poem, but some of the basics of reading poems need to be established before we can move on.

Adapted from the following:

“Elements of Poetry.” New York: Bedford St. Martins. 1 February 2008 <http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/elements.html>.

Gura, Timothy, and Charlotte Lee. Oral Interpretation. 11th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.Smith, Mark Kelly, and Joe Kraynak. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry. 1st ed. New

York: Alpha Books, 2004.Turco, Lewis. The Handbook of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. Hanover, NH: University Press of

New Engliand, 2000.

Before your reading

Did you rehearse? Did you read the poem?

A poem doesn’t live in a vacuum. As valuable as it might seem to look at the poem as a stand-alone text or to consider a poem as entirely open to interpretation to the reader, it helps more often than not to find out aspects of the poem.

•Who is the poet? •Where does this poem figure into the poet’s work?•What do critics say about this poem or the poet’s work as a whole?

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the language of a poem is unfamiliar to you. Poems do that some time. We’ll get around to interpretation later, but first things first:

•Look up unfamiliar words in dictionary, for meaning and pronunciation.•Are there allusions in the poem that you need to look up?•Look at the poem on the page. Size it up. Look at the line length, the end of the lines, the way the stanzas look.•Is the poem in a form? Does it rhyme? Is it in free verse?

Before your reading

Did you step outside, pause, take a breath? Did you warm up?

Before your reading

Did you understand the poem?

Before your reading

Did you understand the poem? Denotative and connotative meanings?

Before your reading

Denotative meanings: it means what it means.

For example:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

Before your reading

Denotative meanings: it means what it means.

The man drank whiskey quietly.

The denotative meaning is simple: a guydrank whiskey and didn’t make much noise.

Before your reading

For the connotative meanings, think about the emotional impact, the sounds, the associations you have with the words:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

Before your reading

For the connotative meanings, think about the emotional impact, the sounds, the associations you have with the words:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

Drinking is fun, right? It’s at parties, usually.

Before your reading

For the connotative meanings, think about the emotional impact, the sounds, the associations you have with the words:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

The word “quietly,” with the idea of booze,makes you think the man is alone. True?

Before your reading

For the connotative meanings, think about the emotional impact, the sounds, the associations you have with the words:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

This implied solitude intensifies theanonymity of “the man.” Why not “Shawn”?

Before your reading

For the connotative meanings, think about the emotional impact, the sounds, the associations you have with the words:

The man drank whiskey quietly.

And what about whiskey? What does it “connote”? That it’s not scotch, rum, Jello shots, Jägermeister?

Before your reading

Can you pick up any alliteration?

Before your reading

Alliteration: the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close succession.

Before your reading

Alliteration: the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close succession.Examples:

banked fires blazeNate never knows Peter Piper picked a peck of pickles

Before your reading

Did you pick up any assonance?

Before your reading

Assonance: the vowel sound(s) within a word that matches the same sound in a nearby word or words, but the surrounding consonant sounds are different.

Before your reading

Assonance: vowel sound within a word matches the same sound in a nearby word, but the surrounding consonant sounds are different. Examples:

then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

Before your reading

Did you pick up any rhyme?

Before your reading

“Pick up” means hear—do not just look at the words for similar word structures. Rhyme means “sound alike,” and it’s not always at the end of a line. Not in free verse, to be sure, as well as received forms.

Before your reading

Example:

who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love’s austere and lonely offices?

Before your reading

Nor is it at the end of the word.

who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love’s austere and lonely offices?

Before your reading

No sounds are random sounds in a poem.

There are whole schools of thought that hold thatno sound, rhythm, accent, syllable, or placeon the page is random or is not thought-out orotherwise predestined in a poem.

This is what is called prosody, which isthe theories of the organizing principles ofthe composition and reading of poetry.

Prepare to be taken into the realm of prosody.

Iamb any two syllables, usually a single word but not always, whose accent is on the second syllable. Ta-TUM

Example: upon, arise

Trochee any two syllables, usually a single word but not always, word whose accent is on the first syllable. TUM-Ta

Example: virtue, further

Anapest any three syllables, usually a single word but not always, word whose accent is on the third syllable. Ta-Ta-TUM

Example: intervene

Dactyl any three syllables, usually a single word but not always, word whose accent is on the first syllable. TUM-Ta-Ta

Example: tenderly

Spondee any two syllables, sometimes a single word but not always, with strong accent on the first and second syllable. TUM-TUM

Example (in this case no one word, but a series of words in this line):The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs. (The words "day wanes" form a spondee.)RAID KILLS BUGS DEAD (double spondee!)Hey you!

To name the kind of foot, use the adjective form of these words.

A line of iambs = iambic

A line of trochees = trochaic

A line of anapests = anapestic

a line of dactyls = dactylic

a line of spondees = spondaic

To name the kind of foot, use the adjective form of these words.

A line of iambs = iambic

A line of trochees = trochaic

A line of anapests = anapestic

a line of dactyls = dactylic

a line of spondees = spondaic

The number of feet in a given line is combined with the suffix -meter.

dimeter a 2-foot line

trimeter a 3-foot line

tetrameter a 4-foot line

pentameter a 5-foot line

hexameter a 6-foot line

Any group of lines forming a unit is a stanza.

Stanza of 2 lines is a coupletStanza of 3 lines is a tercetStanza of 4 lines is a quatrainStanza of 6 lines is a sestetStanza of 7 lines is a septetStanza of 8 lines is an octave

Queen-Anne’s-Lace

Her body is not so white asanemone petals nor so smooth—norso remote a thing. It is a fieldof the wild carrot takingthe field by force; the grassdoes not raise above it.Here is no question of whiteness,white as can be, with a purple moleat the center of each flower.Each flower is a hand’s spanof her whiteness. Whereverhis hand has lain there isa tiny purple blemish. Each partis a blossom under his touchto which the fibres of her beingstem one by one, each to its end,until the whole field is awhite desire, empty, a single stem,a cluster, flower by flower,a pious wish to whiteness gone over—or nothing.

William Carlos Williams, c. 1921

Queen-Anne’s-Lace

Her body is not so white asanemone petals nor so smooth—norso remote a thing. It is a fieldof the wild carrot takingthe field by force; the grassdoes not raise above it.Here is no question of whiteness,white as can be, with a purple moleat the center of each flower.Each flower is a hand’s spanof her whiteness. Whereverhis hand has lain there isa tiny purple blemish. Each partis a blossom under his touchto which the fibres of her beingstem one by one, each to its end,until the whole field is awhite desire, empty, a single stem,a cluster, flower by flower,a pious wish to whiteness gone over—or nothing.

William Carlos Williams, c. 1921

Before your reading

No rhythm is random in a poem. Not even a random rhythm.

the lost baby poem

the time i dropped your almost body downdown to meet the waters under the cityand run one with the sewage into the seawhat did i know about waters rushing backwhat did i know about drowningor being drowned

you would have been born into winterin the year of the disconnected gasand no car we would have made the thinwalk over genesee hill into the canada windto watch you slip like ice into strangers’ handsyou would have fallen naked as snow into winterif you were here i could tell you theseand some other things

if i am ever less than a mountainfor your definite brothers and sisterslet the rivers pour over my headlet the sea take me for a spillerof seas let black men call me strangeralways for your never named sake

—Lucille Clifton

A beautiful, sad poem, one that is not areceived form (sonnet, terza rima, ballade,etc.). But there are several things workinginside this poem that affect how one reads itsilently, and how one might perform it.

In broad strokes:

Typographical level (lower-cased, threestanzas, also look at last two lines)

Sonic level (sounds, rhymes)

Sensory level (images, metaphor)

Typographical level

In the Clifton poem, it’s lower-cased, threeStanzas. Also, look at last two lines and the third

line in the second stanza. Those white spaces are meant to make the reader pause, however tentatively.

This is just one example of a poet’s use of the “Field of composition,” or “composition by field” (Duncan, Olson).

Typographical level

M

--Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1919) calligrames

Typographical level

Wolfgang Wackernagel’s “Gilgamesh's Irisglance,” translated from German (!), aan example of “concrete poetry.”

One of the major differences between poetry in prose is the breaking of the line, or line breaks.

One of the major hurtles for the reader of poetry, especially free verse, is reading poems that make use of enjambment, which is the breaking of syntactic units (phrase, sentence) from line to line.

Not all lines will terminate, or appear end-stopped, with the end of a syntactic unit.

Sonic level (sounds, rhymes, we went over that).

Sense level.Image x, the cross-lined letterMetaphor x is ySimile x is like yMotif x1, x2, x3 Allegory x = y(x)Theme a+b+c = x Puns x = ecks, ex-Allusions x = the unknown variableAmbiguity x ≈ y

Here is Clifton’s poem, scanned and marked up for sounds by poet Sharon Olds.

Before your reading

Can you envision the persona of the speaker?

Before your reading

What’s the tone of the poem?

Before your reading

Who is the speaker?

Before your reading

Where are you reading? Are people listening? How loud can you or should you be?

Before your reading

Microphone check one-two one-two: Did you check to see how loud it was?

Before your reading

Did you have an introduction prepared?

Before your reading

Did you have an introduction prepared? Did you set up the reading (e.g., if the work is excerpted, is from another language, uses old or antiquated language)? If so, did it set up the reading well? Was it too long? Short?

During the reading

During

Were you completely present, or in the moment, as you read and performed the poem?

During Did you maintain your persona’s presence?In acting, we might call not maintaining this

presence “breaking character.” This might be caused by anything from laughing at a line that is funny, being distracted by oneself or the audience, anything besides there is a call for a deliberate for the reader/performer to break the fourth wall.

During

Did you keep your concentration?

During Did you look up from the page?In a class such as this, this is sort of the first-level of

moving from reading at an audience to reading to, or for, an audience. There are several schools of thought in the “looking up” debate. I would say you should be familiar enough with your material that you should be able to look up and at your audience. Or at least move your eyes!

During

Did you make eye contact with people?

During

Did your concentration break? Where and when did it happen?

During

Did you stumble over a word or words? Which words? How was your diction? Did it keep up with the poem’s sounds?

During

Did you bear in mind the rhythm of the piece; that is, its meter and use of line breaks or enjambment?

During Did you present or perform a poem with its climax or

crescendo or resolution? Or how about a volta, or turn? Keep in mind all poems do not climax or reach a crescendo, or even turn, but many of them do. It’s best to have realized this before performing the poem; to be sure, it’s a good measure if one understands the poem fully.

(More about “understanding” a poem later.)

After your reading

After your reading: assessment

After your reading: assessment

After your reading: assessment

After your reading: assessment

Did you present a climax or crescendo of the poem?

After your reading: assessment

Did the audience respond to your reading?

After your reading: assessment

Were you distracted by the audience’s reactions?

After your reading: assessment

Intended effect? Stone-faced crowd? Did anyone laugh? If so, did you wait until you were done? How was your comic timing?

Adapted from the following:

“Elements of Poetry.” New York: Bedford St. Martins. 1 February 2008 <http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/elements.html>.

Gura, Timothy, and Charlotte Lee. Oral Interpretation. 11th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.Smith, Mark Kelly, and Joe Kraynak. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry. 1st ed. New

York: Alpha Books, 2004.Turco, Lewis. The Handbook of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. Hanover, NH: University Press of

New Engliand, 2000.