Research Article
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Year 2022, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 88 - 100, 02.11.2022

Abstract

References

  • Doumerc, E. (2004). An interview with Benjamin Zephaniah. Kunanipi, 26 (1). Retrieved from https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi
  • Drucker, J. (1998). Visual performance of the poetic text. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 131-61). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Gräbner, C. (2008). Performance poetry: New languages and new literary circuits? World literature today online https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/
  • Hutcheon, L. (1993). Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism. In J. Natoli and L. Hutcheon (Eds.), A Postmodern Reader. New York: The State University of New York Press. 243-73.
  • Lehmann, Hans-Thies. (2006). Postdramatic theater. London and New York: Routlege.
  • Lyotard, Jean-François. La Dent, la Paume. In Des Dispositifs Pulsionnels. Paris : UGE, 1973. 95-104.
  • Middleton, P. (1998). The contemporary poetry reading. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 262-99). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Novak, J. (2011). Live poetry: An integrated approach to poetry in performance. Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers.
  • Pavis, Patrice. (1998). Dictionary of the theatre: Terms, concepts and analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • ---. “The Interplay between Avant-Garde Theatre and Semiolgy.” Performing Arts Journal 15 (1981): 75-85.
  • Perloff, M. (1998). After free verse: The new nonlinear poetries. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 86-110). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Somers-Willett, S.B. A. (2009). The cultural politics of slam poetry. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
  • Stewart, S. (1998). Letter on sound. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 29-52). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wheeler, L. (2008). Voicing American poetry: Sound and performance from the 1920s to the present. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Wordsworth, W. & S. T. Coleridge. (2007). Lyrical Ballads. London: Penguin Classics.
  • Worthen, W.B. (2010). Drama between poetry and performance. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Zephaniah, B. (2022, April 3). Dis poetry [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHi6wIDaT1Y&t=3s

De-poeticizing poetry, De-semiotizing performance: A reading of Benjamin Zephaniah’s “Dis poetry”

Year 2022, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 88 - 100, 02.11.2022

Abstract

Often described as Performance Poetry or Dub Poetry, the poems of the Jamaican-British poet, novelist, actor, singer, and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah (1958 - ) seem to destabilize all cultural, aesthetic, poetic, political, and philosophical assumptions and, by so doing, seem to destabilize poetry itself. “Dis Poetry” (with ‘dis’ read, simultaneously, as a demonstrative pronoun – slang for ‘this’ – and as a prefix that ‘un-poeticizes’ poetry – anti-poetry) is a poem that has been chosen as the focus of this research project for two main reasons. While the first reason has to do with the poem’s performativity and its idiosyncratic parole, the second is rather related to its self-reflexive summary of Zephaniah’s dispoetic ‘achievements’. The paper will address issues that relate to the poet’s performance while reading the poem in public, his gaming with and parodying of the poetic tradition since Shakespeare, the transcendence of semiotics (hence, desemiotics) and all meaning-production apparatuses in his poetry, together with the erasure of the gap that has for a very long time of human art history distinguished ‘High’ Art from ‘Low’ Art. The poem will be shown to de-create itself, among other systems of meaning, as it refuses to perform both theatrically as well as poetically.

References

  • Doumerc, E. (2004). An interview with Benjamin Zephaniah. Kunanipi, 26 (1). Retrieved from https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi
  • Drucker, J. (1998). Visual performance of the poetic text. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 131-61). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Gräbner, C. (2008). Performance poetry: New languages and new literary circuits? World literature today online https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/
  • Hutcheon, L. (1993). Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism. In J. Natoli and L. Hutcheon (Eds.), A Postmodern Reader. New York: The State University of New York Press. 243-73.
  • Lehmann, Hans-Thies. (2006). Postdramatic theater. London and New York: Routlege.
  • Lyotard, Jean-François. La Dent, la Paume. In Des Dispositifs Pulsionnels. Paris : UGE, 1973. 95-104.
  • Middleton, P. (1998). The contemporary poetry reading. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 262-99). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Novak, J. (2011). Live poetry: An integrated approach to poetry in performance. Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers.
  • Pavis, Patrice. (1998). Dictionary of the theatre: Terms, concepts and analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • ---. “The Interplay between Avant-Garde Theatre and Semiolgy.” Performing Arts Journal 15 (1981): 75-85.
  • Perloff, M. (1998). After free verse: The new nonlinear poetries. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 86-110). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Somers-Willett, S.B. A. (2009). The cultural politics of slam poetry. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
  • Stewart, S. (1998). Letter on sound. In C. Bernstein (Ed.), Close listening: Poetry and the performed word (pp. 29-52). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wheeler, L. (2008). Voicing American poetry: Sound and performance from the 1920s to the present. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Wordsworth, W. & S. T. Coleridge. (2007). Lyrical Ballads. London: Penguin Classics.
  • Worthen, W.B. (2010). Drama between poetry and performance. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Zephaniah, B. (2022, April 3). Dis poetry [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHi6wIDaT1Y&t=3s
There are 16 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Abdellatif Ben Halima

Publication Date November 2, 2022
Published in Issue Year 2022 Volume: 4 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Ben Halima, A. (2022). De-poeticizing poetry, De-semiotizing performance: A reading of Benjamin Zephaniah’s “Dis poetry”. Eurasian Journal of English Language and Literature, 4(2), 88-100.