Poetry Workshop: Craft in Writing and Performance
The poet’s first relationship is with the page; it is where the idea that birthed the poem is worked out, each word chosen and each line crafted. The page is the first performance space. Each move must be tight and flow with the next as in a dance. Is it possible for a second or third person read the text as you intend? That level of care and attention impacts what the work looks and sounds like as a performed piece. It’s common for a poet in performance to impose performative notions that are unnatural and uncalled for based on the text. How can we honor our texts and listen to how they move and what they say? As an aside, the poet’s capacity to produce new and imaginative pieces that grow with their work impacts their efforts to develop their brand, their market, and a community around their work.
This workshop is designed to heighten an awareness in poets of the words and ideas we weave together, with a view to increase their effectiveness on the page and in performance. We will pay very close attention to particular texts, looking at the particular elements that make a piece effective and those that do not, and how one may craft a performance or presentation. Space is limited to ten persons. Please send particular pieces you would like workshoped to [my email address?] at least 3 days before the workshop, if possible.
The next WAPI- Nairobi will be on 20th Sept, 2008 at the British Council grounds, Upperhill, Nairobi. The Theme is ‘Do you’(Be Yourself)
About Neema Ngwatilo
Neema Ngwatilo studied music at St. Lawrence University, in Canton, NY, a journey that’s taken her to Johannesburg, London and New York City. As a poet she’s featured alongside some of England and North America’s better poets. Her work often investigates the idea of identity, as impacted by migration, colonialism, globalization, and challenged by memory. Ngwatilo is now engaged in performance, writing, family and vaguely ethnographic research activities.
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