{"id":18738,"date":"2017-03-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=461"},"modified":"2017-03-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T00:00:00","slug":"poetry-and-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/03\/poetry-and-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry and Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I<\/span>n an old Paris Review<\/em> interview<\/a> with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. Frost responds with, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that would be like, myself,\u201d and then adds about writing couplets:<\/p>\n

Very first one I wrote I was walking home from school and I began to make it\u2014a March day\u2014and I was making it all afternoon and making it so I was late at my grandmother\u2019s for dinner. I finished it, but it burned right up, just burned right up, you know. And what started that? What burned it? So many talk, I wonder how falsely, about what it costs them, what agony it is to write. I\u2019ve often been quoted: \u2018No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.\u2019 But another distinction I made is: however sad, no grievance, grief without grievance. How could I, how could anyone have a good time with what cost me too much agony, how could they? What do I want to communicate but what a hell<\/em> of a good time I had writing it? The whole thing is performance and prowess and feats of association. Why don\u2019t critics talk about those things\u2014what a feat it was to turn that that way, and what a feat it was to remember that, to be reminded of that by this? Why don\u2019t they talk about that? Scoring. You\u2019ve got to score<\/em>. They say not, but you\u2019ve got to score, in all the realms\u2014theology, politics, astronomy, history, and the country life around you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He adds that rhyming is a matter of performance: <\/p>\n

performance and prowess and feats of association\u2014that\u2019s where it all lies. One of my ways of looking at a poem right away it\u2019s sent to me, right off, is to see if it\u2019s rhymed. Then I know just when to look at it. The rhymes come in pairs, don\u2019t they? And nine times out of ten with an ordinary writer, one of two of the terms is better than the other. One makeshift will do, and then they get another that\u2019s good, and then another makeshift, and then another one that\u2019s good. That is in the realm of performance, that\u2019s the deadly test with me. I want to be unable to tell which of those he thought of first. If there\u2019s any trick about it, putting the better one first so as to deceive me, I can tell pretty soon. That\u2019s all in the performance realm.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an old Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. Frost responds with, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that would be like, myself,\u201d and then adds about writing couplets: Very first one I wrote I was walking home from school and I began to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1098,1809],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-robert-frost"],"yoast_head":"\nPoetry and Performance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In an old Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. 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