Performance and reading
The performance of a poem or a play is a powerful demonstration of how dynamic reading can be. The poet or actor makes the writing come alive in similar ways to how the imagination gives vivid shape and energy to words when we read.
M. NourbeSe Philip and D-Empress Dianne Regisford are two poets for whom performance plays a key role in the communication of their work. Whereas Philip uses only her voice and body to put her message across, D-Empress involves sculptures and other props in her multimedia and multisensory performance pieces.
The following clips show the different effects of these approaches, and demonstrate the extent to which words gain energy by being breathed, chanted, whispered, and sung.
Here, M. NourbeSe Philip reads from her experimental poetic epic, Zong:
In this clip, D-Empress performs ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’:
One of Britain’s leading poets is Linton Kwesi Johnson, who pioneered dub poetry as a literary form, and whose work appears on albums as well as in published collections. He visited Oxford in April 2018, where he read some of his poems and spoke to Prof. Paul Gilroy and Dr Louisa Layne.
We have a profile page dedicated to Linton Kwesi Johnson where you can read more about him and his work.
Cite this: “[scf-post-title].” Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds, 2017, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 30 May 2022.
More on reading
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Approaches to reading |
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Reading and reception |
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Identifying with literature |