Tanya's Blog Of Complaining About Her Poem

is what this feels like it's turning into. So rehearsal was last night and we spent maybe 45 minutes or so working on the beginning shape of the dance for the poem. This involved me talking about what I envisioned the performance looking like (I would be on stage and reading live, the dance would run longer than each section read, there would be one central dancer and other dancers on stage for some of the sections, etc.) and then reading the poem aloud to the dancers there, one of whom immediately suggested the shape and a light structure for the dance.

This involved a square shape, using the four corners of the stage and having the consistent theme of one dancer lying down, static. The "down" dancer would change in each corner and all 4 dancers would move from section to section in a clockwise manner, ending at the front of the stage on the right. We discussed what was going on at the heart of each section and they generated a word or idea for each section to guide their movements. The cue to move to the next section would be the "down" dancer standing up and moving.

So reading the poem, (here's where the complaining starts) i discovered the voice is all wrong. i wanted it to sound like jenkins since he has a very distinct dialect- very nc country mixed with an almost esl (english as a second language) feel to it- and while i think it kind of works on paper, it is not working at all when read aloud. That' s a blessing and a curse. The voice as it was is a hard one to talk about anything "bigger" with- it's not a philosophical or reflective voice, so it's hard to move beyond narrative. I think I do in the "line isn't marked" section and I think that sounds natural, but it isn't happening elsewhere.

I also realized that the poem is way too bogged down in narrative. I have to work on that balance and i think changing the voice will help move away from that for the above reasons. But mostly i realized this poem is still at least 2-3 drafts away from working. I think spoken word pieces (although this poem will also exist on the page as we are producing a chapbook for the performance) need big endings, and moments bigger than themselves, as well as some narrative cohesion to work. right now, this poem isn't either an on the page poem or a spoken word piece. it is neither fish, fowl, nor good red meat and i need to commit it to one side or the other.

i also learned from watching the dancers that this poem is about loneliness and alienation and what it means to move beyond that. i need to center that at the heart of the poem as well. which probably means it also needs a different title.