Ode to a Blackbird

Abstract

To access in written form, or even through a recording, that which was once performed in front of a live audience is akin to looking at an old picture. Both documents leave a trace of that which has passed, but they cannot recreate or capture the lived experience; they can only house the haunting. In the mid-20th century’s swirl of audiovisual and written documentation of poetry, one may identify a pressing hunger or impulse to preserve an oral tradition which has historically, at least for the most part, been lost—and an attempt on behalf of poets to legitimize and record their life’s work. Sung poetry may be forgotten—it leaves no physical trace behind. In the end, it is the material that prevails, at least in the eyes of history.