It was appalling. Five women, dressed in black and reciting. I could have finished that sentence with the word poetry but, try as I might, I don't think I can associate their recitation with that word. I'm pretty non-traditional in my views on poetry. But one view I hold pretty firmly, is that poetry should be accessible. You shouldn't need a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and a knowledge of every book ever written to understand a poem. You shouldn't need footnotes.
So this... dramatic recitation was just about the opposite of that. Five women, dressed in black and reciting. Turning over a deck of cards, to determine what to read. Occasionally one picked up a piece of A4 and read something- read anything, it appeared! "Economic. Crises," for example, while somebody else walked back and forth saying "She bleeds. Red." in a sinister voice and someone else sat on the floor, writing "Once there was a beautiful princess," (arguably the best written thing in the whole performance!) Back and forwards, the blonde Scottish woman with the hefty cleavage announced "She bleeds. Red!" while the slim girl with the paling scars said "The economy is failing...." and, walking in a circle around them, a dark-haired rose-lipped woman said things like "DNA, the key, the key to our identity". Voices doomfilled with that irritating rising inflection preferred even by amazing performance poets. In the background, the sound of a man sweeping the floor highlighted the importance of meaningless work (a man performing earlier swept the floor, then tipped the dust back out from the pan.)
Meaningless work. Says it all, really.
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