Queen of Multimedia
for a reason
Janet Kuypers
1/11/17
When people are offered
a 10-minute time slot to perform poetry,
most people call them
poetry readings.
But I call it a show.
Why? For instance,
I incorporate music any way I can
(when it can’t be live,
I’ll settle for recordings
from my musician friends).
For years I used PowerPoint
for huge screens of my art
to coincide with my poetry,
or else I’d display videos,
either by making videos to display
or by filming me while I read
and showing my show live on a big screen.
And no, I didn’t play with props
to distract people from my writing,
but to incorporate different senses,
so people could remember my poetry
with both sights and sounds.
And sure, they might have granted me the title
“queen of multimedia” and “multimedia diva”
back in Chicago, but, it’s more than that.
It’s more than throwing technology
into poetry performance art shows.
And I’m not trying to be the poetry shock jock.
I just look for different ways
to get my message across
and hammer my poetic point home.
And you know, sometimes it’s fun
to use more than just words.
Once, when I did a show
of poems about other countries,
I displayed on a screen
A giant drawing of a tv
while my photos slide show scrolled
on the “screen” of my drawn tv,
while I sat in a drawing of a giant chair
and clicked on a giant mock remote control...
Because if the world doesn’t match
what I want sometimes,
then at least I can draw the world
just as I want it...
And yeah, I can be all about the props
by creating a Wink Mattindale long thin
game show host microphone,
but that mike was perfect
with my Warhol wig and ‘50s jacket
when my poetry feature became the
“Poetry Game Show”.
Other poets each read a poem of mine —
and after I borrowed a sound pressure meter,
I awarded the poet with the loudest applause
with a paper Burger King crown, adorned
with “Poetry Game Show Winner” flags.
I did a show about conflicts with cops
by wearing prison orange,
removing the hand cuffs for my feature
and standing in front of a height ruler,
like I was getting my mug shot taken.
I did a show like I was on my cell phone,
reading poems like they were conversations,
because how many times
have you been able to listen in
to someone loud mouthing,
in their own world, on their cell phone.
I wrote a poem about being an open book
and read it in a show after using novel pages
to make a paperback jacket, because really,
you could guess a thing or two about me
by listening to what I care to share
Because yeah, I’ve done a lot of shows
standing on a stage just reading poems.
But when it comes down to it,
those aren’t the shows people remember.
Because if you can incorporate people,
or props, or music, or video into a show,
and it’s something that people remember,
well then, all that makes me think
is that being a poet is one thing,
but when it comes to poetry shows, maybe...
maybe being the queen of multimedia
isn’t such a bad thing after all.
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