On a related note:

I had Walter Ong on the mind when I wrote this post, specifically his writings on the evolution of print technology/consequent transformations of the way people think (check out Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word if you’re interested in a foundational text in the field).

Plotting poetic appreciation through the ages on a mental graph where X = a time line and Y = a primary mode of communication/poetic appreciation… I can’t help but think we’re about three quarters of the way through a roughly hewn bell-curve.

Very generally: verse began in the oral tradition (out of necessity). Then came print and interiority. I think all of us in the publishing industry are agreed that this phase of communication/thinking is somehow evolving… although no one’s quite sure how the chips are going to fall. In the meantime, it seems that — as a culture — we’re more interested in the verses that come wedged between choruses than in the ones you can find in the ever-shrinking poetry sections of shuttering big box book stores.

So although rock and roll or hip-hop AS “poetry” is contentious… I think we have to take its “aurality of appreciation” as a sign of things to come. Which is, I think, where the recitation renaissance comes in.

While realizing that the above is a bit reductive (the nature of the blog comment beast?), I’d be interested in hearing what people think about this.

I think I’m with Yeats.