Project background and Introduction

Hello! For this spring semester I'm conducting research, funded by the UROP program, with Professor Meg Tyler of the Humanities division at Boston University. The research will be guided and structured around the Spring catalog of Poetry Reading Series, here at BU. You can check into this blog for updated information on the readings (all free of charge) and when they are happening, hopefully video recordings of the readings, interviews with the poets, related scholars and academics, and really anyone who has anything to say on the matter (hopefully you all).

Some of the questions I'll be addressing include:

In what ways and to what degree do poets perform their poems? Within this question, attention will be paid to how comprehension of a poem is informed by the absence of visible line breaks, margins and white spaces. Essentially, what happens to our understanding of a poem’s formal elements when we cannot see how it is structured? Questions of rhythm also emerge. Is rhythm interpreted differently when heard rather than when read or sounded out inwardly to oneself? How does one's understanding of a poem change after hearing it read out loud? Do people having attended poetry readings ultimately prefer reading or hearing their favorite poems? After reading a particular poet's work, and then seeing the poet perform, how has the poet's appearance and style, even character, surprised you? To answer this question, I'm hoping to assemble a group of people to read poets who will be presenting, then go hear the poets read at the Series, and finally have a little post game discussion of our observations.

Disclaimer: In an effort to bring attention and increased interest in the readings, I will be including brief excerpts (a poem or two) from the books the poets will be reading from. If anyone finds a problem with this please let me know, and I will take them down promptly.