LEWISTON — Students in a contemporary performance poetry course taught by William Pope.L, a senior lecturer in theater at Bates College and a widely acclaimed artist, will perform their final projects Tuesday, May 26.
Asked to describe performance poetry, Pope.L said, “We try to rethink poetry as something you do, not just something you say. The focus is on refreshing conventional ideas about performing poetry by getting out of the poet’s head and into the world.”
Admission to the 7 p.m. performance in Gannett Theater is open to the public at no cost (seating is general admission).
The students studied forms of performance poetry and related art movements from the 1920s to the present — from Dadaism and Futurism to contemporary performance work by such artists as John Leguizamo, Karen Finley, Sherman Fleming and Robert Whitman.
“The style of performance involved in this short-term class is supposed to be extreme, bigger and bigger, until it reaches the level of absurd,” said student Kelly Cox of Worcester, Mass.
For more information, call 786-6161 or visit batestickets.com.