Peter Middleton has written powerfully about the poetry reading – by which is generally meant reading a poem aloud in front of an audience, however large or small – as a kind of critical work. In this he is pushing back against a critical perspective that is sceptical of the poetry reading as a significant context for meaning-making. Following lofty dismissals by academic ‘godfathers’ such as Harold Bloom (who had no time in particular for poetry ‘slams’, a slightly different case addressed below), there are theorists who view the poetry reading in hierarchical relation to the written poem, with the written poem remaining privileged as the site of ‘true’ meaning and the reading as an ephemeral moment that has no effect on the poem itself. In contrast, Middleton asserts that ‘there is much more semantic activity in a poetry reading than the dogmas of literary theory would allow’ (p. 265). Middleton and others point to the significant effects of qualities of the reading itself – its pace, tone, pitch and so forth – and of audience response, particularly during the reading (mutterings, shufflings, endorsements, encouragement, discomfort). In Cornelia Gräbner and Arturo Casas’s terms, a ‘triangular relationship between performed poem, author or performer and the audience’ (p. 9) dynamically produces meaning in the oral/aural setting. Gräbner elaborates on how this dimension derives from location too: ‘a particular venue can make a poem vulnerable to external rhythms, or can exclude these’ (p. 72). Middleton proceeds with caution, however, noting that the poetry reading cannot denote an either/or meaning priority: ‘the ambitions of the poetry reading to place its art within a community of listeners should not be collapsed into either a moment when a work independent of the collective process is handed over in speech, nor as a moment of collective shared understanding that “reads” the work within its own encompassing discursivity’ (p. 267). Rather, the poetry reading works in an ongoing, dynamic mode of meaning-making between author, reader, listener, page, stage, room. 

Part of this conversation necessitates that we think about ‘authorship’ and poetry in sophisticated ways. On the one hand, Gräbner and Casas suggest that ‘the enunciation of the poem by the poet him- or herself and the poet’s presence at the site of enunciation emphasize the poet’s position as an author who accepts responsibility for his or her work’ (p. 11). This constitutes an intervention in the academic consideration of the ‘author function’ more broadly (see the ‘Poetry and Theory’ think pieces), but it can also be politically persuasive too: presence is a significant thing, and the act of reading a poem publically as its author may well be an assertion of presence in the face of exclusion, fear or hostility. Here the ‘counter-cultural’ heritage of the poetry reading – its emergence especially within youth movements and radical politics in post-war Britain and America (such as the Civil Rights movement, or the ‘Beat’ poets) – persists in the poetry reading’s association with defiance of censorship and inclusivity. (Admittedly, this has little to do with other poetry readings as ‘high culture’ events, where value is placed on hearing a poet with a high public profile read their work aloud to a select audience, so the picture is not politically clear cut.) For poets who work in explicitly ‘spoken word’ or ‘performance’ terms, authorial presence is key (see below) but in any case, the poetry reading has a compelling relationship with the act of authorship, and from there authority and authenticity. 

But of course the poetry reading – rather than ‘performance poetry’ as such – might include the act of reading a poem that the reader has not written themselves. In this context, you might consider the difference between the ‘untrained’ poetry reading (a low-tech reading aimed at allowing the poem’s own sounds to emerge) and the reading by a famous, trained actor, or a literary or musical celebrity. The ‘Reading Metre: Audio Readings’ section of this website explores and stages examples of the former type (what Charles Bernstein might hear as a reading that ‘enacts the poem not the poet; it materializes the text not the author; it performs the work not the one who composed it’ (p. 13)). The type read by a well-known person (see the links to poetry performances) unavoidably brings the identity of the reader into view with the poem – it is rhetorically determined both by the poem and by the reputation (and skill) of the reader. Beyond both of these is the ‘fusion’ case of someone like Glaswegian poet, Peter Manson. Manson is well known in Glasgow for his extraordinary, visceral, compelling poetry readings not only of his own work, but also of work by other poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins or Stéphane Mallarmé (whose work Manson has translated). In Manson’s body and voice, these long-deceased presences uncannily return again-and-yet-not-again as his unique voice and body powers through the poems’ sounds and rhythms in his own historical moment. 

While poetry readings are importantly associated with particular (usually sociable) spaces that are seen as hospitable to poetry and poets – poetry libraries, poetry cafés, theatre venues, halls, community centres and so forth – the case of non-authorial poetry readings especially may emerge in more diverse settings. These can be especially culturally influential or significant as the act of reading a poem brings the sphere of poetics (see ‘Poetry and Theory’ think pieces) predictably or unpredictably into view, whether in a public event such as a political rally or a significant ceremony, or in more fluid contexts, such as the splicing of a poetry reading into a piece of music or, especially, a piece of cinema. Such settings can variously be ‘split open’ by the presence of poetry cutting into another art form, or can be unified or epitomised by a poem’s particular spirit.