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Creative writingdense, or its form is part of its pleasure, then consider distributing a copy of this poem to the audience. You will know how long you are expected to read always undercut this time and never exceed it. Understay your welcome. It is always better to leave an audience wanting more than to leave them word-weary.
SpaceThe audiences to whom you perform
inhabit their own dimensions, and both you and they are affected by the space in which the performance takes place,
and by the moment. Make something of this space if you can try to rehearse in it briefly beforehand sit where the audience sits and explore the dynamics of your performance from that perspective before they arrive. If you wish to make use of music or visual display as part of your performance, it is vital this is arranged, setup and tested well before your reading.
Does your work really need it, though Keep it simple if you cannot make it professional.
SetWhen you are starting out, rely on having a set, a standard reading that you tailor to fit to different times. If you area poet, it is always much more striking to learn the poems by heart than to read them aloud from a book it makes them seem an everyday part of speech. Having a performing version of
your work is useful at first, but dispensing with the prompt of a manuscript or book encourages greater freedom in this new open space. You may wish to play variations on your work, to add or remove words or whole paragraphs or stanzas to suit that time, place and audience, something a popular or jazz musician would do as a matter of course. You might even improvise
poems or stories on the spot, freewriting them aloud from prompts solicited from the audience. You could even make the audience do some writing, too.
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