{"id":83599,"date":"2015-03-12T17:07:57","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=83599"},"modified":"2015-03-12T17:07:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T21:07:57","slug":"poetry-costumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/12\/poetry-costumes\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Costumes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"stevie<\/a>

Photo: Jorge Lewinski<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1960s, Stevie Smith had a resurgence in popularity. The counterculture had a penchant for taking up older eccentrics\u2014Dr. Bronner, for instance\u2014and when the youth came calling, Smith was ready. After years of relative obscurity, the poet could finally take her place in the limelight. And did she ever.<\/p>\n

Smith is a poet worthy of consideration, as Diane Mehta<\/a> makes clear in these pages. But I\u2019m talking less now about her tricky work than her performance. As the Poetry Archive summarizes it: \u201cIn the 1960s Smith built a popular reputation as a performer of her own work, playing up her eccentricity and ceremonially half-singing some of her poems in a quavering voice. She also made a number of broadcasts and recordings, her skillful and extensive use of personae lending itself particularly well to reading aloud.\u201d Wrote the Financial Times<\/em> of a 1969 performance at Festival Hall: \u201cThe small faun-shifted figure who darted on to the platform to open the second half was Stevie Smith, and she is a star.\u201d Performance poetry\u2014led by the New York School and later taken up by writers like Michael Horovitz\u00a0and Beckett\u2014had become popular in the UK, and this was clearly Smith\u2019s medium. Writes Laura Severin in her essay \u201cBecoming and Unbecoming: Stevie Smith as Performer,\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

Smith\u2019s performances were noteworthy, and somewhat puzzling, for a number of reasons, one being that she sometimes sang her songs in an off-key voice to either well-known tunes or her own musical imitations of hymns and music hall songs. The other often noted feature of her performances is that she frequently appeared onstage as a child\u2014in pinafores with white stockings, at least once in a blue gingham frock. Because of her age, her childlike costumes were viewed as unseemly, although strangely compelling.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the strength of her popularity, Smith would make a record and do a recording for the BBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I remember a professor describing Smith\u2019s performances with British understatement as \u201creally quite bizarre.\u201d And indeed, the impression one comes away with again and again is that of a cross between Baby Jane and an aunt in Arsenic and Old Lace<\/em>,<\/em> and maybe the Andy Warhol collaborator Taylor Mead when he used to perform at the Bowery Poetry Club on Friday afternoons.<\/p>\n

But Smith was nothing if not canny. She chose to play the professional eccentric and control the reception of her work. If she sacrificed a certain gravitas to do it\u2014well, she was certainly in good company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all the goggle-eyed descriptions of Smith\u2019s child-drag and sing-song keening, there\u2019s not much video to remember her by. Audio<\/a>, yes<\/a>. And absent the costumes and singing, she never sounds particularly theatrical: serious and authoritative and really, well, quite like a poet who didn\u2019t need to rely on antics to get young people\u2019s attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 1960s, Stevie Smith had a resurgence in popularity. The counterculture had a penchant for taking up older eccentrics\u2014Dr. Bronner, for instance\u2014and when the youth came calling, Smith was ready. After years of relative obscurity, the poet could finally take her place in the limelight. And did she ever. Smith is a poet worthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17377,17379,8667,165,2047,53,17378,7030],"class_list":["post-83599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-british-poets","tag-counterculture","tag-eccentrics","tag-poetry","tag-poets","tag-reading","tag-reading-voices","tag-stevie-smith"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStevie Smith\u2019s Eccentric Reading Style<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When the poet read her work aloud, she often burst into song and adopted a completely new persona.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/12\/poetry-costumes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poetry Costumes by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 12, 2015 \u2013 In the 1960s, Stevie Smith had a resurgence in popularity. 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