an Alli Warren reading that, according to Stephanie Young and (link from her blog) Kasey Mohammad, must've been a wowzer. I'm not well read in Warren's work but remain ready to accept the verdicts of Young and Mohammad (not that I doubt their perpicacity) even so. I'm more or less ready to get into fistfights about Joanne Kyger, tho I've read a measly amount of her work. same thing with Wieners before finally I caught up with a goodly portion of his work. there are simply some whose work just gives you righteous clues from the littlest evidence. I didn't just like "Maddy Groves" the 1st time I heard Fairpoirt Convention's version, I wanted to follow Richard Thompson and drummer Dave Mattacks around. which 30+ years later I essentially have done. so anyway, I appreciate Stephanie's (excuse 1st name basis, it just sounds better) adjustment of Kasey's depiction. it's an apt distinction between Alli steering herself or the roomful. the one is an integration of the reader and the word, and that performance with the audience. the other is a manipulation. perhaps the most electrifying reading I ever attended was Clark Coolidge way way back. I think he read mainly from The Maintains, at any rate, he read a lot of prefixes and suffixes. we'd studied the book beforehand, not to say I grokked more than an inkling of what the fuck. what got me was the confidence of Coolidge (or should I say Clark, to MAINTAIN consistency) in reading this curious stuff. I mean I was 19 and still the poetic nympholept trying to keep up with an entirely new substantiation of poetry. I dunno if I learned prior or after that Clark was a jazz drummer (that explains it!!!), but it sure helped. and it is that sense that I glean from S and K concerning A's reading. I have acres and pains concerning the performance of poetry. for it aint, for me, a rock thing. in my minuscule reading experience, me as reader that is, I sense myself as conduit. the words going thru me, and with them, an emotion that isn't really mine. I saw Noah Eli Gordon read last summer, and was impressed. it was virtuoso reading, very strong and pushed. but as it went along I started to think there was more effort and push than, um, content. the words didn't stay with me, but the muscular performance did. I'll bet there was more to Alli's reading than swagger. I know there's poetry in them words, so I wish more of that more was adverted by the critical element. that's why I ragged on Kasey earlier. he was there, he's brilliant, he could've said more. as I said before, he sounded smarmy.