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VII:34.  [But] pure literacy is an unrealized state in a culture which, although it can hardly (re)conceive of pure orality (despite its continued existence on the planet and despite the fact that it precedes our own internalized literacy), is nonetheless logocentric. Typically, recorded texts, where they do not explicitly transcribe (as in the earliest form of text-based performance, namely plays, or in novelistic dialogue), nonetheless hint at speech or verbal performance. Paradoxically, such texts, which indicate a voice and often pretend to realize their (full) potential in ritual, voiced readings, are those which seem to preserve their authorial integrity, as their readers-turned-listeners maintain absolute decorum and silence in the auditorium (which may also be an imaginary auditorium, faithfully constructed by a silent reader for the poet’s voice). In poetry, the impetus to perform is strong and, in contemporary culture, it grows stronger as we hear some of the most innovative writers turning to forms which, while based on experimental literacy, nonetheless achieve their most faithful representation in oral realizations. Thus, the fruitful, suggestive oxymoron of “performance writing” swims into view, recast and partially resolved in the strongly indicative phrase, “writing as performance.”

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