It's Alive!

Willie Perdomo's poem, "Nigger-Rican Blues," needs to be performed to get the complete effect. It is a conversation about the poet's identity in relation to how he is perceived. The subject matter lends itself to performance, and the form in which it is delivered, the different speaking parts, seems to require the poet's interpretation for the humor and the absurdity to lend their full weight to the poem. And because the poem is about perceptions, having an audience rounds out this meaning.

To understand the speaker's relationship to Puerto Rican culture, we have to hear him speak Spanish. Fluency is a demarcation of belonging. The authenticity only comes through on the stage.

Also, race is more informative to the meaning of the poem if we see the poet perform. This would be a very different poem if a White, non-Spanish speaking person delivered the piece. Race is interesting in "Nigger-Rican Blues" because in Puerto Rico, there are many more races than Black and White. Each mark on the skin tone scale between those two has a name. The poet keeps claiming that he isn't Black, and one of the characters in the poem keeps reminding him that he is. Because, in this country, you are either white or in various stages of being caught up in the criminalization of people of color, no matter how close you get to the top.

Performance brings the body to bear on meaning. Pieces that are written for the stage seem that way when reading them because the context clues are missing. A performance poet may neglect to write in context clues because they know that delivery is an essential element, and they expect to be able to "be" the poem as well as having written it. A dull rhyme scheme can come to life in a poet's mouth, the poet being able to deliver the words with authority of emotion that is stripped by the page.

Tony Medina must be an old school spoken word poet. The pages of little-line left-margin, and the phrasing, the word play, is classic. This is one in which the anger of the speaker does come through the words on the page, though the arrangement (form) does nothing extra for the piece.

We can certainly see the perspective and feel the anger of the speaker in "New York City Rundown," when he talks of "Aunt Jemima Oprahs" and "old white ladies / suckin on her / big bourgeois boob / tube," and the double duty the words are doing is delight. I was reading it out loud, for the first time, and two pages in I found myself saying "get the fuck out" with vehemence right on cue. The length of the poem allows a reader to get into character.

Still, when the refrain comes in, "european on me," this poem needs its creator. It needs the stage and the energy that has been built up through the preceding pages. It needs the audience to be riled up by the word play, to have been worked into a frenzy and be emboldened by it in order to participate when the call and response part comes around. The poem doesn't have stage direction; it doesn't say "audience repeat," but reading it I get the feeling that if this were live, it would be an interactive piece. And maybe even involuntarily so. The poet is on a roll, and the piece has enough snap phrases to have the audience on his side, and they would pick up on the repeated line and enter the poem as participants "in this great big toilet bowl / addressing the flusher."

It is possible that there is movement within a poem, and around it. If a poem was written to live on the page, it must be wholly self-sufficient. It has to be able to move a reader without the author present. All context clues must exist within the poem. Movement can also be indicated by using white space as a presence, rather than as absence of words. Enjambment for page and stage poetry indicates a direction through the break of the line, momentum. Piled-on rhyme indicates quickness, choice of syllables that zip or loll in the mouth can invoke or inhibit speed.

Many pieces written for performance don't bother with showing on the page what they know they will fill in on stage. There is so much more to communication than words. We read a thousand non-verbal clues for each word uttered. The construction of a poem requires anticipation of non-verbal clues, and figuring out how to direct that information without the author being visible. When this is done well, we say, "it works." It is working on all levels of information provided to the reader. I'm not sure that same care is taken in writing a performance. I believe that these non-verbal elements are thought of and planned for, but not as an element of the writing. The paper the piece is written on is a prop, not the whole show, and often is not allowed on stage at all.

I don't think it's worse or better, more or less capable. I might have called stage poetry lazy on the page; but in a more enlightened state, I see different beasts.