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Public poetry performances of the 1970s and 1980s: reconsiderations of poetic licence

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNChapter (peer-reviewed)

Published
Publication date2012
Host publicationLírica i deslírica: Anàlisis i propostes de la poesia d’experimentacio
EditorsMargalida Pons
Place of PublicationPalma de Mallorca
PublisherUniversity of the Balearic Islands Press
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The term ‘poetic licence’ is developed as a ‘searchlight concept’, for the purpose of exploring the relationship between poetry performances from the 1970s, and the poetic tradition. I take Marjorie Perloff’s reflections on ‘poetic licence’ in her book of this title as a point of departure, and then extend these reflections through the analysis of poetry performances by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Urs M. Fiechtner & Sergio Vesely. ‘Poetic licence’ is developed as a useful concept to understand the diverse types of relationality that are developed in the poetry performance (Johnson: affirmation of the collective experience of his generation in explicit defiance of the poetic conventions of white Britain; Fiechtner & Vesely: the performance as a platform where poetry critiques society in an Adornian manner). Both performance practices are connected through their positing of poetry as a force autonomous from, and opposed to the establishment; and the performance is turned into the platform for such a critique.