Stage Poetry: My Experience

Sometime in 2016, I approached the stage to perform one of my poems. Though I had sworn in the rudimentary stage of my life as a poet, to stick to the writing part. I thought getting the poems that will connect most, with my readers, as well as myself,  is penning down. I had not gotten use to the sound of my voice, so my ability to convey my arts through vocal expression was indeed lacking.


So, I being at my best, an introvert, and at my worst, socially awkward, not an ideal trait for a 'cicero, with fire in his belly', but nevertheless, I took the stage. In retrospect, I stuttered through the  lines of poetry I had crammed for delivery on stage, as soon as I saw  'the crowd'. The inadequacies weren't contained, but I faced my fears, and did a fine job. My introspection was on the spotlight, but I grew a great deal of immunity from petty comments and criticism.


I'm not much of a cinemaphile, but I have an intricate fondness for performance on stage or camera. I understand, it may be maddeningly fearful going through your own lines in front of your audience, at first. In dramatic performance, actors tend to shed away their actual self and become someone else for a moment but in poetic performance, it's intense in an eerily way, you find yourself without your composition on paper, you find yourself defenseless and lonely because you are the poem.


If you look deeply at the contemporary arts, away from the traditional form, you'll find the beauty of rap music and hip hop. Kendrick Lamar is a poster-child for energetic and lively rap performance. His TPAB album analyzes cultural and sociopolitical scenario in America.


The question you may want to ask is: 'In a blend of poetry and performance, does the performance supersede poetry?' The answer is indefinite, for me. In the most flourishing period of poetry, it was at most times, was usually vulnerable to mixed interpretation and daringness. It was a 'lone art', but with an open  concept, form and style. In that, it was possible to fuse other literary form with it. For example, dramatic poetry, prosaic poetry, performance poetry etc. Poetry in itself is complementary in structure, but the vibrancy depends on the poet.


Sometimes though, I imagine my poems being performed more on stage, than remaining 'static' on paper. Today, there is a resurgence of a healthy blend of stage-page performance.


What defines stage-page poetry performance? the key is the union between physicality and thinking pattern. The body has to gesticulate to  the rhythm and thematic concerns. This happens mostly in narrative poems, that toe the line of emotions. Poems which have a rhythmical presence, that capture the response of the body to the flow and meaning of words. This gives poetic performance expressiveness. Another characteristics of poetic stage performance is their ability to connect with the audience, in a way page poetry might not.


It is easy to understand poetic performance on stage, and some of them are highly simplistic. Though, there are a lot of experimentation today, which further bolster the quality of stage poetic performance. They offer experiences that are unforgettable.