Staging Poetry’s Voice :: Luis Bravo

On Sampsonia Way: The Staging of Poetry’s Voice: An interview with Poet Luis Bravo

SW: What’s the difference between staging of the voice and mise en scène?

LB: The staging of poetry’s voice has an infinite number of possibilities that are distinct from theatrical techniques, because theatrical techniques usually end up turning the staging of poetry’s voice into something predictable. The poet’s voicing has a stamp of personal composition that might be for live reading, or recording, or to be spoken in a passageway, or on a neighborhood street. It doesn’t have to use the technology of the mise en scène. In other words, the poet elaborates the text in such a way as to make the way it’s delivered vocally into an art form too. I’ll say this clearly: poetry should sound, if the poem doesn’t sound and the poet doesn’t elaborate this in its poem, then the poem is incomplete or the poetry does not come up.