Live Poetry Quotes

What happened to poetry in the twentieth century was that it began to be written for the page.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.

Chris Chandler is the best performance poet I have ever seen.

Everything is pre-taped these days, but I'm a believer in, 'If you can't do it live, don't do it.'

You just go where poetry is, whether it's in your heart or your mind or in books or in places where there's live poetry or recordings.

There have always been poets who performed. Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

Stadium rock and commercial rock are the opposite of what poetry needs. An audience of around 200 is ideal for poetry.

I think you can perform any poem. But what I believe is that the best examples of spoken word poetry I've ever seen, are spoken word poems that, when you see them, you're aware of the fact they need to be performed. That there's something about that poem that you would not be able to understand if you were just reading it on a piece of paper.

Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry. I tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person.