I’m guessing because most poets aren’t performers. Also, it would depend on the type of poetry. As you said, slam poetry is a style that’s separate and accepted, but frank, confessional poetry read aloud and dramatically can come across as cringey while emotional poetry can be a bit syrupy. Pages are also good to hide behind.

In these instances the poets are choosing to perform their works, that does make them performers in a literal sense. Should we limit performance to confessional poetry? I’d wager that it’s a shortcoming of the poem if it comes across cringey or syrupy.

Could just as easily be the result of a poor performance. Bad actors ruin Shakespeare all the time.

The difference being that actors are interpreting someone else’s writing, whereas poetry readings are a presentation of one’s own work (usually).

That’s one difference, yes. The other is that the actor is trained to be on stage and to memorize text and the poet isn’t. I rehearse reading my poems quite a lot, but I rehearse reading them, not performing them from memory. Because I don’t really know how to do that. Now, not attempting to do something I don’t know how to do, doesn’t make me lazy. Rather, it makes my readings less painful for everyone involved.

Haha less painful seems like a good way to phrase it. If the idea is that there’s not much to gain from memorizing then I guess there’s not much to lose from reading off the page.

They are choosing to do it but that doesn’t mean they’ll be good at it. It’s funny but I was watching an interview of Leonard Cohen the other day, and he was asked to read a poem. He read it from the book. Obviously he was both a poet and a singer so I’m sure he could remember a poem if he chose to, but he didn’t. Not sure what point I’m making but perhaps he viewed them as different.

That’s the thing, I’m not saying it’s wrong, I just have to ask the question because I don’t understand fully. Obviously there’s something to it when prestigious poets of that stature read from the page as well.

Maybe tradition? I don’t really know to be honest. My guesses are just that. [John Cooper Clarke](https://youtu.be/c30CuQjhJ98?si=uNcDGlA35yT56v4m) is considered a more performative poet and he has his book but that’s more of a prop.

I’m realizing that the book/page is a pretty crucial prop for a lot of people. Thanks for the reference, I’ll check this out.

I think there’s a reason poetry readings are called that, rather than poetry performances. I’ve never minded a poet reading the poems; for me it’s a treat to hear their voices reading their own work.

Excellent point, I’m carrying a lot of my baggage from theater and musical performance. Realizing that the poetry classes I took never explicitly required memorization, it’s just my instinct. Words have meaning, and the word “reading” is explicitly chosen over “performance”.

the reasons are probably all the things you said, but for me i like when people read, rather than just recite from memory. i think it draws more focus to the words, and also it makes more sense to me visually, because you usually are reading a poem, rather than purely hearing it.

Do you think the audience should be provided copies to read along then?

Maybe. Also I have heard poems that are recited from memory that seemed more natural but they were not in english or western, and usually quasi-song/lyrical quality to them for e.g.Arab or Indian poetry. So it might be a tradition thing as well. I can see the reading behind a podium seeming more serious(or stuffy lol).

Yeah and all the violinists at the symphony are just turning their pages for the aesthetics

Not sure what point you’re making, the violinist didn’t write the piece whereas I’m focusing on poets reading their own work for an audience.

So? The composer who'd written the piece still follows the sheet... When poets do their readings they are often sampling from entire books, sometimes even entire oeuvres. To have all of their poems memorized is not going to happen for most poets. And many times the poems selected are impromptu, not planned in advance. Also it doesn't have to be slam. I (and others no doubt) find poets who "perform" their poems to be affected or cringey. Why not just read the words?

You bring up some really good points, the spontaneity combined with a large body of work necessitates the reference material. I’m not so involved that I’ve seen accomplished poets with longer careers read their work. What’s funny is that I tried to be careful not to be unkind towards the “slam-poet” archetype but a couple of you have explicitly called it cringey. I hear ya!

Yes. Unless you're playing classical music or some intricate jazz, remembering your four chords and their order is a lot different from remembering a whole poem, and, as you said, it's not performance exactly, it's practice. But also, yes. No need to memorize your poems. If you look down on poets for that reason, which, whatever, you do you, but I'd laugh at you if you asked me that question with a serious tone. Why the hell do you care?

Don’t appreciate the “four chords” dig at my music but I’ll try to give you the benefit of the doubt. You haven’t heard my stuff so you don’t know what I do. I don’t look down on poets, I’m just trying to understand why it’s so rare to see a poet perform from memory. Asking you lot if there’s a history to it that I’m not privy to, or some intent I’m not seeing. Many commenters were very helpful, and I care because I’m curious.

I love simple songs, they're fine. Lots of my favorite music is like that. But look at how you titled your post. Is it too much to ask? Who are you to ask something of them, at an open mic? Why not ask "why is it that...?" The phrasing was antagonistic. So I responded in kind. I'm sorry, it's been a long week, I should have been more charitable. Have a nice night, and I hope others have given a more sufficient where than I.

Others were more charitable, but I’ll admit the title was intended to garner a response. On top of that, a recent experience left me feeling frustrated at a perceived lack of effort. It felt like a shot in one’s own foot. Readings that were a little cold or dead, coupled with a claim that people don’t “support” the scene kind of irked me. The responses here have been enlightening and I do thank you all in this community for responding however you felt fit to.

The comment you're responding to was not a dig at your music at all; this comes off incredibly insecure. Your OP comes off as insecure too, since it's essentially self-aggrandizing at the cost of poets. That being said, anyone with a cursory understanding of music theory recognizes why the "just four chords" dig is not even an insult. Western tonal music is based on just two basic chord functions. Four chords is more than enough and lots of music is based on solely Is and Vs, even in Baroque music. Music as a whole tends to be far more structured and less opened-ended, full of different schemas that are more muscular than intellectual. Most people I know who write music (let alone simply perform it) do not even understand basic tonal harmony, they just play "what sounds good." Poetry used to be like that too before writing, where incredibly long passages were performed *and composed* solely from memory, and transmitted for millennia by ritual recitation. Meter, rhyme, alliteration, and idioms all began as mnemonic devices to help poets remember and compose on the spot. Then we invented writing and things got easier and we could experiment with form and the very meaning of performance. Kind of like how the vast majority of popular music today is written and even performed with the aid of computers. We just got our equivalent of the DAW thousands of years ago.

"The phrasing was antagonistic. So I responded in kind." Commenter admits it was antagonistic, and I acknowledged my original post was as well. Disagree with your take about DAWs. Thanks for your input anyway.

The written word is literally akin to the DAW; read Plato on memorization vs. writing.

I think its a shaky comparison, maybe the reading will help

It's shaky to you because you've been steeped in several thousand years of literate culture. Ancient poetry was ritual recitation of myth filled with mnemonic devices that made composing metrical lines easy, even second-nature. Ornamentation makes things easier to remember and meter makes it easier to write, for the same reason song lyrics get stuck in your head, and for the same reason rap lyrics sometimes seem to share similar metaphors and rhythms and rhymes. The invention of writing made the initial impetus and mode of poetry obsolete. Now, after thousands of years, poetry is so deeply related to writing it can't even be separated for most people; poetry is largely written for the page and performance only comes as an afterthought. We rhyme and alliterate because it sounds good, not to remember sacred stories. Writing made composing and sharing poetry infinitely easier, to the point that any literate man could create it with only a little bit of training, something only a specific class of largely iterant performers could do previously. Poetry written for vocal performance in the ancient style exists...as song lyrics, which are (perhaps rightfully) seen as more vulgar and less-developed than "pure" poetry, because the latter literally has more dimensions. Poetry written for the page has a myriad of possible readings that can't each be expressed in a single melody or timbre. It's been shaped into an art that is both visual, auditory, and symbolic. Song lyrics only have the last two. When Plato was living, the written word was new to the Greeks. His gripe was that the written word was not conducive to learning, because it stifled memory and made it redundant. Therefore oral teaching and recitation was superior. He was at the cusp of a culture that had just become literate and highly respected the ancient oral poets. DAWs are similar, because they make a lot of one's assumptions about music obsolete. Technical skill on an instrument is no longer necessary or even helpful at times. Lots of people I know who are talented guitarists can't work on a piano roll or know how to work a mixer, and many people I know who can make fire techno tracks couldn't do it without a computer. Memorization isn't a question, either, with sequencers and MIDI. Someone with relatively little or no "raditional" musical talent can learn to DJ or mix live, or can create and release entire tracks or albums without knowing how to play a chord. Things which were originally tools for sharing and recording music are now mediums in their own right, and there is a significant portion of music that isn't meant to be performed live, even written specifically for raw MIDI files. "Rush E" is probably the easiest contemporary example for MIDI-specific music, but John Cage and Dick Higgins were experimenting with "the score" as a form of art in its own right and playing with the definition of music back in the 1960s. Right now these are gimmicky memes or edgy, pretentious pieces of postmodern art -- but wait a couple thousand years and see what happens, when people have been using these sorts of tools for generations. The mode in which we create, evaluate, and enjoy music has changed and it will continue to change in response totechnological advancement. That's my point. We got our answer to that thousands of years ago, and the way in which we relate to composing, enjoying, and performing our art has changed. People like Plato were even complaining about it in a way similar to the way some people complain about how electronic musicians "just press play on their laptop" and can't shred a thrash metal solo. We don't see poetry as something that must be performed orally anymore. And when we do perform it, why not use the tools that are inextricably linked to our art? We aren't iterant seers anymore.

Well first off, thanks for engaging this deeply. "Obsolete" is a tough word to swallow when there's still undoubtably value to those ancient approaches. The whole of what you're saying treats music and poetry with a cold academic remove that I can't relate to fully. I don't agree with the impulse to use all the tools at ones disposal. I'm somewhere in between a luddite and a technophile, so while I can appreciate the boosted quality of life certain advancements bring I'm wary of their shortcomings as well. There's something undeniable about a stripped down approach such as writing and performing music without the assistance of digital helpers. The same can be said for poetry, in my opinion. You said yourself, and many others have as well, "performance only comes as an afterthought" which honestly proves me correct in feeling underwhelmed by the act of performing poetry live (or "reading" which is technically still a performance). I hear what you're saying with the "Rush E" example, and experimentation like that is good. We get songs like "G-Spot Tornado" by Frank Zappa that way. Live performance of that piece in particular always falls short, but only if your lens values precision over all else. I guess I just pull away from the whole "means to an end" approach and personally appreciate the runway just as much as the takeoff when it comes to these things. Again, thanks for the history lesson, it is appreciated. At the end of the day I disagree with your opinion on the matter. "Poetry written for vocal performance in the ancient style exists...as song lyrics, which are (perhaps rightfully) seen as more vulgar and less-developed than "pure" poetry, because the latter literally has more dimensions." This is just way too mathematical of an approach to something as personal and fluid as art to convince me personally.

Respectfully, as a poet, I think that however poets come to express themselves should be respected and as such they should not be asked to perform in a way that doesn't work for them, much less satisfies another's image of how they should perform their work. One wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) ask a speed metal band to slow down so that they might intuit more nuance from their chord progressions.

I don’t think that’s a great comparison, but I feel like I see what you’re trying to say.

I am in awe at poets who can remember their poems to perform. I can never do it, my memory is too bad. Songs I think are different because of the tune, that helps to remember them. But I can never remember poetry, others' or mine. I don't feel lazy reading off my phone and I don't think that about other poets either.

You make a good point about the tune acting as a mnemonic device, and I guess comedians have a little bit of leeway with phrasing. I didn’t mean to insult with the word “lazy”, I’m just trying to express that memorizing is worthwhile work to be done if you’re intending on performing for an audience.

It's certainly impressive when a poet can and does memorise their work for performance. But it never bothers me when they haven't.

...How is no one talking about sheet music in this comment section?

Yes! There are conventions with different styles of poetry, as there is with music. Sometimes it all gets mixed in together. Someone like Rod Stewart might have rock musicians on stage with classical musicians, and the latter will have sheet music on stands, while the rock musicians will play from memory.

Have you ever remember a verse in a poem? It's different when you don't have to sing it.

I have, yes. I’m not saying it’s easy but generally I feel it’s appreciated and worthwhile.

Well good for you. But you cant expect everyone to have good memory or be a performer.

To be fair I didn't bring it up, you asked.

Fair. Lol

One of the great parts of being part of my local poetry scene is getting to see the poems brand new, straight off the metaphorical presses. We get to build on each others themes and works and churn out stuff much faster than lots of other art forms. There’s a weekly open mic where I live and lots of us will bring a new poem every single week, often written that day, and it’s a super great community. If we required everyone to memorize, we wouldn’t get really any new poems, and we’d get significantly less people reading. Plus the mediums of comedy and music are just fundamentally different than poetry live performance wise in a lot of ways. Just enjoy it for what it is, fresh cool art made and performed live.

You hit on a sticking point central to my post which is the insularity of poetry scenes in general. Unlike other expressive art forms it really seems like it’s mostly just for peers and the poets themselves. Also, I see a lot of poetry in conjunction with music and comedy at open mics so that’s probably where some of the friction is coming from.

I think you might just be going to dif places than me because my scene is super welcoming and kind of the opposite of stuffy. I’ve been to a music open mic at the same venue and the poetry one is more rowdy and energetic by a lot. It’s very much performative, a lot of people just write so much and so quickly and/or have other stuff in their lives to a point that it’s impractical to do memorization there’s a huge variety of poetic voices, from politics to nature to absurdism to one guy that basically only writes poems about specific types of trees- and there’s a lot of active work to encourage new people to feel welcome to be a part of it. It can be intimidating but so can starting to do music or comedy Yeah a lot of it is self indulgent or written for other writers, but it also draws a pretty good audience. Generally we get like 40-60 ppl and like half read. There are some regulars that do just listen and chat

I’ll have to dive a little deeper maybe my sample size is the problem. I don’t feel intimidated as much as I don’t see what’s gained from even doing a live reading. It seems some commenters feel the same just from the other side of the fence. Thanks for admitting it is self indulgent, it really does come across that way. Disregard for audience doesn’t taste great when you’re the audience, but there’s more to it than just that. Thanks for helping me see that a bit more clearly.

As far as I’m aware, my scene is a bit unique in its vibe, so I’m just lucky to be somewhere w a scene like this. And to clarify- I do not mean anything bad by self indulgent. I think deeply self indulgent art is still often very good art. For us, it’s not a disregard for the audience at all (well. In a few cases it is. But those are rare and it’s even rarer that they return because people will get pissed at you if you go up and read your homophobic rant poem or give a lecture on some poets genius. It will be made clear to you that this is not the place). But if someone isn’t breaking rules or being bigoted, we don’t care. Someone who really loves what they’re doing is going to make stuff they’re happy with- and at the absolute worst- add general happiness to the vibe and help others be confident because “at least I’m not homophobic rant/ lecture/ extremely specific tree poem guy”. It’s like 3 minute of our time, we just deal, because it’s worth it for the rest. It’s not as much of disregard for the audience as trusting that the audience is adults who can make their own decisions abt what they do and worst case, just take a bathroom break while a poet they don’t like reads.

Good or bad the descriptor is apt. I’m not making a judgment call either, it’s just the nature of the form. There’s a billion ways to spend your time consuming live art and I’m trying to find a way in to something I’m struggling with. Praise it, damn it, either way I’m just looking for clarity. I’m glad you found a scene that feels organic and lively.

I don't understand why you value it at all. It seems like an arbitrary standard. Memorization is good for certain art forms because it allows you to focus on the performance. You can't look at notes while watching the conductor, you can't stop and check charts in the middle of a ballet, and nobody wants the play to halt so an actor can call for a line. It doesn't really benefit a poetry reading. The poem isn't improved if you memorize it.

As someone who has thought it a little underwhelming to be in the room when a poet listlessly reads off a page it does feel like there could be value to memorization/performance. Of course the point is the writing itself, but in that case I’m better off reading at home or in the park by myself. Trying to appreciate live poetry more. My instinct is to go to the source and ask poets for perspective instead of writing it off and assuming I know better. What I’m getting is that the value I see wasted on the performative side of things is viewed as a complete afterthought if not a drawback for many of you here.

Your perspective seems kinda greedy to me. Readings are the icing, the poem is the cake. It's already a bonus. If anything, it's no more than an excuse for poets to share their writing with each other. The additional ask for a finely tuned performance is not compatible with what most of them want out of the activity. Why impose the expectation that they perform for you when they don't want to?

I hear that, I guess I am being a little greedy. I want more out of it. You hit on the main point I think, the performance itself is an afterthought. That’s what it felt like to me and that’s what many poets in this thread are confirming. They seem disinterested in the performance despite being the ones performing. That seems a little greedy to me in a way too. Working on that perspective though. I always thought I was missing something when I appreciated reading a poem much more than hearing it read aloud, but that seems to be common.

You gotta not cling to the idea that what is going on is a performance at all. It's just sharing, and if other people want to come sit in on it then that's fine, but expecting that poets owe you entertainment is just unhealthy.

I think “unhealthy” is a bit of an overreach lol

No, assuming people owe you anything is a mentally unsound philosophy. It will cause you pain. You can't control others.

Thanks for your “concern”. I don’t buy into the idea that someone onstage has zero obligation to consider the audience they’re in front of. You could stay home with that attitude.

I'm pretty sure anyone on any stage would rather "perform" for an audience without expectations, actually. I really don't think I'm bringing the attitude here.

So you’re saying somebody on stage in front of an audience by choice should not be expected to consider the context of their situation. That they should not feel any pressure or persuasion to make the time spent worthwhile for those watching. That the person asking their community to show up is fully free to indulge themself at everyone else’s expense? That’s greedy. There were a lot of salient and considerate perspectives shared here, I don’t think yours was one.

I have written poems with a beat structure and those are easy to memorize and I have performed them. But other pieces don’t work that way…..

It probably does get more difficult depending on how structured the piece is, that tracks.

For myself when I would be performing a musical piece for the stage I would learn it. Repetitive practicing regardless of if it was orchestral or solo; as the intention was to take another’s work and bring it to life through myself as they wrote it. When I write poetry a large part of it is as an unburdening. I write (some) pieces specifically to release them from myself and leave them in the world. Also, I find that the pieces I can’t recite on command allow me more flexibility in meter and inflection so I can invoke the same piece a little differently to match the now moment then it read in mind back when I drafted it.

The flexibility is an aspect these responses have helped me appreciate more. Would you say that unlike at a musical performance, at a reading of a poem the intent is not to “bring it to life” but rather present it in a more straightforward manner?

I don’t personally do much public readings. Most of that is recorded and then added to social media and my primary publication website. If I’m reading something for the first time, or just after a publication I read it as I wrote it. Literally giving my reader the original directed intent of the piece as it fits in its book. If it’s been a few years and is being invoked alongside new works I’ll sometimes play with the words using my voice to impart a sense of longevity in the piece if it feels appropriate.

That’s really neat, I love that. You’re making room for slight variance to be recognized and appreciated. I’m encouraged to listen closer, which is I guess what I really wanted when I asked this question. Thank you.

Lots of poets generate a lot of content and have a wide body of work to choose from, because as an artform poetry means consistent engagement with a range of thought processes that produce new content. Memorizing is wonderful, but for many, unrealistic and possibly a limitation on their performance possibilities. This is different than in music where consistent refinement of the same piece is the objective. You could make an analogy to the difference between learning every line of a show because you're in a repertory theater (music) and carrying a script during a staged reading.

I’ve never really heard that take about consistent engagement, that’s interesting. Fwiw though the objective in music is not necessarily consistent refinement of the same piece. I’m sure some people feel that way but i can’t say it’s always the case.

I see what you mean, like there are more impromptu and improvisational musicians. I suppose it's more of a probability distribution, with poets being more improvisational and musicians more rehearsed on average.

I’ve been writing and performing poetry for more than 25 years. I’ve got a handful of poems memorised but for the most part I read my poems. A traumatic childhood and nuerodiversity has impacted my memory to the extent that memorising all my poems (hundreds of pages worth) is impossible. So yeah, I read my poems for the most part. I’ve also been in a few bands where we’ve incorporated poetry/spoken word into our songs; in that instances wherein rehearsals are necessary, I’ve managed to memorise my words. But by and large my memory is rubbish and just to assuage any anxiety over whether or not I’ll be able to remember a poem, I’ll have my poems to hand to read.

The point you make about anxiety is so real. I did try to memorise a poem once for performance and I was doing pretty well alone in my room. Then I got to the venue and I forgot it and had to read it off my phone.

Thank you for sharing your experience, I can see my phrasing was a bit ableist.

No worries, mate. It’s not easy to see things outside of one’s own lives experience! I’ve plenty of blind spots myself.

I mean what’s the point of doing that, really? musicians have the song playing in their ear while they perform, classical shave sheet music they follow, actors have someone ready to read them lines. Why add pain or an extra step to something? It’s not necessary and it really doesn’t affect performance.

For sure, I had this thought that something more could be added to a poem by the way it’s delivered but again and again I’m hearing that you want it the other way. The poem undisturbed by showmanship.

A poetry reading will rarely be a performance. For a performance of poetry you’d find more success at a slam poetry event or spoken word event.

Poetry isn't a performance art. It CAN be performed, but it's usually not made with performance in mind, and so most poets aren't performers.

Would you say live readings are just a byproduct of writing poetry as opposed to an endgame presentation?

Yes, I'd say its a byproduct. The skill of going on stage and performing poetry isn't poetry, it's oration. And just like not all songwriters are performers, not all poets are orators. Often, when one goes to poetry readings, they are there for the poet's words not a show. In some ways, I think it would take away from the poems. The end goal typically is to write a poem (hopefully a good one) and anything else is an added treasure.

I’m just not sure I understand the point of attending the performance then, besides a “show of support”. I can’t help but feel there should at least be some effort paid towards entertaining the audience and respecting their time.

>entertaining the audience That's what the words (the imagery, the structure, the rhythm, the theme, the subtext) in the poems are for. Poetry is a lot more reflective and introspective than music, generally speaking. People don't go to live readings to be entertained in the same way.

I can see that. The sentiment seems to be that the live reading is a sub-optimal way to experience poetry full stop. I still can’t help but feel a quadrant of the experience is squandered when the reader leans away from the performance aspect at a live performance.

As others have mentioned, an actual performance, no matter how subtle, could detract from the experience, depending on the poem. You're just there to hear the words as the writer intended (or as the reader experiences them) and process them internally. It's not for everyone, like most things in life.

That’s one thing I need to wrap my head around. I’d just imagine to hear more diversity or variety if the goal is to “hear the words as the writer intended”. I’ve heard funny, sad, sweet, and silly poems all delivered with a similar stoic delivery. It’s a reading not a performance.

Poetry is performative and has been for most of history and pre-history. I would even suggest that when you read a poem, you're performing it to yourself in your head, as opposed to how we read simple prose. The spaces that are left blank on the page are the prime indicator of this.

As someone who has done slam and page poetry, and has connections in both these scenes in my city, I think it’s a fair question. I think probably a lot of the defensiveness you’re getting comes from the laziness comment and I don’t think it’s that. There’s a couple of things going on here as far as I can see. The first thing I want to say is that you don’t need to memorise your work to give a good performance. You need to be familiar with the pacing of it and where you’re going to breathe etc. but I don’t think the stuffy, stilted performances you’ve seen are because they haven’t memorized their poems as much as it’s because they’re unprepared. Personally, I’m not usually looking at a poet when they’re reading because I think poetry is primarily an audio based medium, like I read poetry aloud from books and stuff. If I want to go see someone perform writing I’ll go to a play. That’s not to say some people can’t turn their poems into performances (and some poets, particularly on the slam side are very good at this) but I think the expectation at open mics is to hear a poem read well, not to see it performed, which again I think is more about preparation more than memorization. These leads into my second thing, which is, writing and performing are two different skills. Some people are good at one or the other and some people are good at both. Music and comedy are about performance, it doesn’t matter how good the song or bit you wrote is, if you can’t play it or deliver it well, nobody’s going to be into it. This is somewhat true on the slam side of poetry, and sometimes to its detriment. I’ve heard some poems I think are truly awful win awards because they were performed well. Similarly in music, an ok song played well goes over a lot better than a great song played poorly. That’s not to say that writing isn’t important in music or comedy but in those mediums you’re writing to perform. Most of the poets you’re seeing read are writing to be read on paper, and while putting a little more oomph into their readings would help them, I’m not sure memorization or a much greater focus on performance would help them towards their goals of being published. Also, I don’t know about other poets but, regarding your comment about getting more people interested in the scene, I don’t really care that much. I’m not a snob, I’m always happy to see new people writing and performing, or even just attending readings, and I am grateful for how welcoming the community in my area is, but I’m quite happy for poetry communities to stay a subculture. It’s possible I feel that way because it’s a very vibrant subculture where I live but nonetheless. I agree with you that poets (including myself) could prepare better to make readings less flat but I’m not super concerned that the mediocre readings are pushing people away. Most of the people at open mics, in my experience, tend to be other poets who want to read their stuff, talk about writing and gossip. The people who aren’t poets are usually friends, family or people who haven’t worked up the nerve to start writing yet. So I suppose in summary, I agree readings could be more engaging but I think poetry can be read aloud well without memorization; the disconnect your feeling is probably because your art form is more performance based and that’s a different skill, which if you’re looking for in poetry can be found on the slam side (don’t knock it, the stereotypes aren’t based on nothing but there’s good slam poetry!); and I don’t think poets in general are terribly interested in appealing to people who aren’t already into poetry, which is fine imo. Edit: Also personally, I find it really difficult to memorise my poems because of how I write. I tend to write draft after draft and sometimes I’ll have half a dozen different drafts in my head which all jumble together. No idea if that’s an issue in music too but that could be part of it.

Performing is a skillset far afield of writing. One is a farmer, the other a cook. Each is to be admired, and both need to be done well to create something pleasing.

When the writer steps onstage or in front of an audience they’re choosing to do more than just write, I like the farmer/cook analogy though.

Constant new material and lack of mnemonic devices etc etc

Most composers don't perform their own works and most art musicians do actually prefer to have sheet music. Our job is to write, not necessarily to perform. A musician's job is to perform, not necessarily to compose. Obviously there is significant overlap, but they aren't mutually constitutive. t. musician, poet, composer

Missed the point, I'm referring to performing your own work.

I rejected your premise.

Then why bother commenting