A poetry reading is a performance of poetry, normally given on a small stage in a café or bookstore, although poetry readings given by notable poets frequently are booked into larger venues such as amphitheaters and college auditoriums, to accommodate crowds. Unless otherwise indicated in advance, poetry readings almost always involve poets reading their own work or reciting it from memory—the recitation of a work by another poet is normally the act of a well-known poet who chooses to read a few poems by lesser-known poets or old friends that the poet feels should be more widely recognized. Poetry readings often involve several readers (often called "featured poets" or "featureds"), although normally one poet is chosen as a "headliner."
A poetry slam is a competitive format that has become increasingly popular, especially in the United States, since its inception in the 1980s. Much of the poetry featured at slams has adapted to a hip-hop sensibility.
Famous quotes containing the words poetry and/or reading:
“That was a way of putting it not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)