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This chapter was written for an audience, but that audience comprises individual readers rather than a gathered crowd ready for aural pleasure. The chapter presents open readings and their more highly orchestrated cousin poetry and continues a tradition of a public poetics oriented more towards direct intervention in and commentary on public affairs than toward the relatively inner-directed lyric tradition. In the 1950s, “open-mike readings”, which are sometimes spelled as “mic,” a contraction of “microphone”, have been a familiar genre in American literary bohemian circles. Contemporary open-mike readings take place in bars, nightclubs, coffeehouses, high school gyms, college lounges, auditoriums, and other public spaces traditionally designated for combinations of entertainment and informal, relatively unstructured community formation.
Keywords: individual readers; open readings; orchestrated cousin poetry; poetics oriented; open-mike readings
Chapter. 8807 words.
Subjects: Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
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