Absolute Magic.


e/ on the Peformative Possibilities of Poetry

Begin, then, with the subtle & unnerving fact that Poetry is
not the poem nor is poetry the performance. Poetry itself
refuses guarantees altogether & in every instance.

The very fact of Poetry’s existence is indeterminate by any
rational measure. Those who claim an existence for Poetry
do so on their own authority exclusively. Those who practice
Poetry actually are practicing attempts at Poetry, for the
presence of Poetry in any given piece of writing or performance
is absolutely provisional & never a matter of anything more
than unverifiable personal perception. All strategies to
impose specific guarantees in the matter of Poetry are deceits,
perpetrated by the clever upon the dull. Poetry is brilliant,
indigestible, & unproven. Those who attempt Poetry are
blind, hungry, and gullible. They accept no substitute. Their
destitution is total, their vulnerability is embarrassing, & their
tolerance for failure is a pit without bottom. Poetry is the
unrestrained laughter of the damned cavorting shamelessly
with the Infinite Vulture soaring pitilessly in the very belly
of the last ice cube poised atop the Scorpion’s Neon Eviction
Notice. Or at least that was what Poetry was a scant
millisecond ago ... all of the terms of the shady agreement
have been rewritten in the ages since that millisecond ago.

Let us admit that Poetry as attempt is its own journey, occurring
for us within the confines of Wording, howsoever Wording might
be made. We will insist upon Wording because the grunting of
gifted athletes upon a football field bores us. We will insist on
Wording because puffing into a tuba admits of little grace &
less wit. We will insist upon Wording because plumb bob niceties
exclude us and quantum mechanics swing with more gruesomely
random perversities than the balance of our days bequeath. We
will insist because all other modes of attempt are known to be
clocked, metered, taxed, exploited, certified, censored,
celebrated, vulgarized, corrupt, & simply do not require a silver
tongue. We are & will remain inordinately proud of our tongues.
Extravagant Wording is a coin of our realm. If Poetry will consent
to dance anywhere, we are convinced that Poetry will dance where
the tongue does. Our attempts accept no substitutes.

Poetry as practice is but a journey of Desire, come what may.
Performance Poetry enacts that journey physically, so that
Wording itself occupies actual space, quite as intimidating as
sweat is, as effort is, as noise is. The difference is that our
Wording has dimensions that leak into the deepest recesses of
memory, that the resonances of our Wording will inspire a later
restlessness. Performance Poetry makes of Wording a physical
opportunist. The moving that Performance Poetry does occurs
right before our very eyes & ears.

The Audience for Poetry is most frequently in a condition of
prey, wherein Poetry stalks the Audience. In Performance,
Poetry is haughty to the point of sadism. The Audience is
Victim & must Defend itself howsoever it can. The only defense
is comprehension, but no Audience comprehends fast enough.
But Poetry knows comprehension eludes the Audience. It is
this knowledge of its own elusiveness that powers Poetry’s
Performance. The Audience’s inability to defend itself in
Time is Performance Poetry’s conquest over print.

Performance Poetry falls into a condition of Theater if the
performance can be repeated. Repeat performances yield
the upper hand to the Audience. Poetry never yields anything.
To remain true to Poetry’s attempt, the journey Performance
enacts can be neither introduced nor concluded: Performance
Poetry makes neither amends nor apologies.

We think we know what Poetry is & might do. We don’t.
The Journey of Desire is an unlawful journey, ungoverned &
lacking accreditation. Each performative occasion is but its
own recapitulation of the Journey to the limits of What Has
Already Been Desired. Each occasion takes the performing
Poet directly to a point where Further begins. That is the
Poet’s sole gift back to the Audience.

We are not looking for laws so much as for the quality of the
Journey. Performance Poetry is not Theater because Audience
is not its anchor. The anchor, paradoxically, is Manifest Movement.

Audiences are, typically, one-time Fields of Opportunity — each
Audience is unique (& so the Poet, each time). A true performance
will occur within the Poet’s capacity to register an Audience as a
unique opportunity to fuel the Journey of Manifest Movement that
is Poetry’s promise. A performance poet rides the Audience as
surely as that very Audience resists every technique foisted upon
them by the poet. It is in this that Poetry occasionally deigns to
make its appearance, howsoever cloaked.

Performance Poetry will be the Journey thru physically
indeterminate space. The links that hold this space together
are dynamic, unstable, fluid, & typically monstrous. The Audience
is an ideal sacred evocation of the monstrous for the performing
poet, but whether the space entered into by the performance
can transcend or transform those psychic monsters the Audience
itself brings to the performance depends wholly upon that
Audience’s own psychic courage. In the best of all possible
performative worlds, it is the performing poet’s example, in
performance, that will embolden the Audience to confront its
demons. Performance Poetry enacts ritual circuitry when it
works, but the poet’s priestly pretensions sicken us when it
doesn’t work.

To fulfill Poetry’s Promise in Performance means to escape the
gravity field of any given poem. Because Poetry is Elsewhere,
because Poetry indicates Elsewhere, & because Poetry’s
performance maps a process of seeking Elsewhere, the very
indeterminates of this circuitry require that poems as resource
be mulched. Performance Poetry is the mulching.

In Performance, nobody listens as intently or as comprehensively
as the Performer. This acuity of the listening faculties causes
in the Performance Poet apprehensions of Poetry, so that new
work by that selfsame Poet will include characteristics of
incomprehension commensurate with a literary outlawry the
deceitful can only read as illitera ... said illitera will in turn
achieve a condition of Poetry in direct proportion to the
Performing Poet’s willingness to continue in the arenas of
Performance. What becomes increasingly apparent is that
abandonment & uncertainty are principles of locomotion. That
Poetry’s long Journey grinds exceedingly fine, exceedingly
outward. The ride is not endless so much as enduring, the
results not conclusive so much as inclusive:

that Song & Desire are One
is Poetry’s sole Promise