The Injustice to Entertainment by Poetry Events Performers

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My tech readers ..this might not conform strictly with technology, but just bear with me. So yesterday i attended Poetry event. Ok, the right words are Wamathai’s Spoken words Sepetember. Since it is event organized through the social media and sometime the performances are done through the phones, i think it is worth taking about here a bit.

[pullquote]Wamathai.com is the biggest poetry and creative blogging site in Kenya [/pullquote]

I am not a poet , although i want to be a writer when i grow up, i doubt if i will ever play with words at the level the poets do. For that i take a back seat and just enjoy reading and seeing people perform at the poetry events.  But there is a problem with my enjoyment in particular at the poetry events! Most of these events are paid for, i mean you part with some cash at the gate. Once i pay for something, I start to demand the service or the product worth my money.  The problem here is not with organizers of such events but with the performances. Or what i would call the actual product bought at the gate.. for a certain amount.

The products are in three categories

  1. Those who perform on stage reading from a book or a phone

Wow..mmmh now i pay for people to google the poems on the stage and read..i will call that injustice to entertainment. In my mind always think of people performing at the poetry events as actors. Just imagine you go to watch movie on the big screen and the actor (concentrate on the good guy here or the hero) stop shooting to read the script….. walk away…  Before you agree to go and perform at the event i would think  you know that you  are an actor or actress on a stage, charged with the responsibility of delivering a performance. That means you need to know your lines and understand the poem well.

Mostly in this category are  people who perform poems written by others. I have no problem people performing poems written by others. In any case most actors are not the script writers but when you do, that never make a great piece of art taste bad on the listeners’ mouth.   You see, i find it funny that most people would start off by stating that the given poem is his or her favorite poem of all time, but after one line she or he can’t remember what next!..wow. I believe that  if you are performing your favorite poem then you should savor the time, speak the words, enjoy the moment  and give the audience the experience of what a great poem should sound like.

Probably you need to go back to the past and understand what happened to the writer. Let me just say get the context of the poem, like where was the writer, and historically what was going on

2. The second category are those who perform without reading …

Great lot i must say and they add richness to world of poetry. Most of them have their own written poems .  But the beauty ends there. On stage, some of the poets don’t even remember what they are meant to talk about on the stage. How do you write something and then completely be blank about it? Like Kenyan musicians on the live shows, who can’t sing their damn songs..

Yes, I understand the stage fright or being nervous or something like that but i have seen most of these people perform almost every event i happen to attend.  Others are people who are easy with the crowd like radio and tv presenters and therefore no excuses..

3. The compose it on the stage kind

Hehehe.. The most clueless kind of performers.. No theme, no direction, no topic, no nothing. They just take things here and there and some demeaning words about women and mix them together on the stage.  Who the hell are you kidding when at one time you are talking about the body of a woman, the next second about a Politicians, and before people understand that, you are on fighting and famine in Somalia.. And here is where i don’t understand women , why on earth would you clap, loud, pigia nduru people who  use stupid words to describe women….SMH

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  • wewe… nani amekujamisha bro?

    Anonymous September 5, 2011 08:19
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