“The default designation of poetry has become written poetry. That's why we have to prefix the adjective "oral," because the unmodified noun no longer covers anything but written poetry. That's also why we resort to other unwieldy phrases to pigeonhole events and phenomena that our cultural proclivities have silently eliminated from consideration. Thus a "poetry reading" describes a performance (from a published text, of course) before a well-behaved, often academic audience. Thus "spoken-word poetry"—so redundant from a historical perspective—identifies voiced verbal art, verse that is lifted off the page and into the world of presence and experience.”

— John Miles Foley

How to Read an Oral Poem (2002), p. 30

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The default designation of poetry has become written poetry. That's why we have to prefix the adjective "oral," because…" by John Miles Foley?

John Miles Foley photo

John Miles Foley3

American literary scholar 1947–2012

Related quotes

“Poetry, from describing external events objectively, is becoming subjectified into a poetry of personal conscious expression.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Book II, Chapter 5, p. 274
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

“Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"The Divine Comedy" (1977)
Context: Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

“Poetry can be written only because it has been written.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Responsibility of the Poet".
What Are People For? (1990)

“Even if great poetry continues to be written, it has retreated from the center of literary life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, poetry has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991)

“Poetry must be as well written as prose.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Letter to Harriet Monroe (January 1915)

“I want a poetry that can learn as much from popular culture as from serious culture. A poetry that seeks the pleasure and emotionality of the popular arts without losing the precision, concentration, and depth that characterize high art. I want a literature that addresses a diverse audience distinguished for its intelligence, curiosity, and imagination rather than its professional credentials. I want a poetry that risks speaking to the fullness of our humanity, to our emotions as well as to our intellect, to our senses as well as our imagination and intuition. Finally I hope for a more sensual and physical art — closer to music, film, and painting than to philosophy or literary theory. Contemporary American literary culture has privileged the mind over the body. The soul has become embarrassed by the senses. Responding to poetry has become an exercise mainly in interpretation and analysis. Although poetry contains some of the most complex and sophisticated perceptions ever written down, it remains an essentially physical art tied to our senses of sound and sight. Yet, contemporary literary criticism consistently ignores the sheer sensuality of poetry and devotes its considerable energy to abstracting it into pure intellectualization. Intelligence is an irreplaceable element of poetry, but it needs to be vividly embodied in the physicality of language. We must — as artists, critics, and teachers — reclaim the essential sensuality of poetry. The art does not belong to apes or angels, but to us. We deserve art that speaks to us as complete human beings. Why settle for anything less?”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews

“Poetry is I say essentially a vocabulary just as prose is essentially not. And what is the vocabulary of which poetry absolutely is. It is a vocabulary based on the noun as prose is essentially and determinately and vigorously not based on the noun. Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that, doing that doing nothing but that. Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a great many kinds of poetry. So that is poetry really loving the name of anything and that is not prose.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

"Poetry and Grammar"
Lectures in America (1935)

“Why do comparisons of words and tone poems (poetry and music) never take into consideration that the word is a mere signifier, but that the sound, aside from being a signifier, is also an object?”

Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872) austrian dramatic and writer

Notebooks and Diaries (1820).

“Poetic form is an abstraction from. or residue of musical form. The ghost of oral poetry never vanishes therefrom. All poetry was originally oral.”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

“I never think of poetry or the poetry scene, only separate poems written by individuals.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Interview in The Review, published by Ian Hamilton (1972)

Related topics