De dood van de podiumdichter?

Abstract

Performance poetry poses a problem to traditionally objective and ‘text based’ literary studies: it seems to herald a curious return of the performing subject. This renewed emphasis on the maker or speaker in performance poetry manifests itself in a variety of ways: first of all, the author is physically present during a slam or performance; secondly, he or she is the primary focus of attention for literary critics; and finally, the position of the author is underlined by the texts or lyrics of many performance poets, since they explicitly postulate a strong subject position. Nonetheless, this return of the author is far from unproblematic, for there are quite a number of performance poets who attempt to undo such a strong subject position. As a result, it becomes possible to discern between two strains of spoken word poetry: on the one hand, there is the strain of recitation poetry [voordrachtspoezie], which is in line with the nineteenth century tradition of verse declamation; and on the other hand, there is a strain of performance poetry [performancepoezie], characterized by a continuous undermining of the position of the performing subject.