Read some of the wompo posts one this topic -- again, the nameless performance poet proclaiming the end of "page poetry" is conjured -- who are these commentators? (if "everyone's" saying it some people must be saying it individually? on a national level?) Guess you can't say "first in print" --

in any case, my questions are what is the replacement of "page poetry"? a return to the oral tradition, where three red-wine free hours must be spent an hour from home in order to hear about the death of someone's grandmother? or hear a funny poem with written-and performed spanish "simultranslation" which is not a translation of the poem, but a second level of humor [a poem I heard at the same slam that I bombed -- it was funny] is there a digital/online poetry viable enough to replace print media? the answer being no? a correlary being the vast majority of poems online are lyric narratives written for print, and the vast majority of performance poems, ditto, and a great deal of the flash work is just animation without celluloid.

what is performance poetry -- a question I haven't successfully answered myself? I know the use of having young poets and people beginning to write become used to getting up and reciting or reading -- it improves the work, confidence, etc., but if I wanted to teach jr. high I would. That's a bit snippy -- one of the things behind the Nite Cafe readings at Columbia is you'd damn sure better get practice before your publisher sends you on a junket. Why isnt performance poetry performance? performance art? a capalla music? theatre? why does most perofrmance poetry change genre & venue when it is good? why are most performance poets white and most good intermedia / performance poets not white? why is so much performance poetry ultimately translated to the page? why is it translated to the page in a boring way?

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