Monday, March 06, 2006

Already poets young and old are favouring oral transmission, delivering their verses by voice at poetry recitals and in pubs and other places where the audience is not a literary one. A good deal of what is thus transmitted may already have appeared or will later appear in print. Or it may be that no true transmission is thus affected, for a man with a pint is capable of profound inattention, though perhaps not more so than an overt literary audience at a poetry recital, or even readers of a book of printed verse.

A C Ward
Literature and its Tranmission in
Longman Companion to Twentieth Century Literature

5 comments:

Geoff Herbach said...

I actually find the man of the pint to be more attentive! I think making poetry (and prose) into event, something to be celebrated, really does good in the world.

neha said...

ahhan.

(wish i had something more witty to say!)

Something dirty said...

heh. oral transmission.

Something dirty said...

I apologize for that last comment. I couldn't resist.

heh.

neha said...

SD, it is funny, now that you mention it.