Fernando Aguiar

THE POETIC IN(TER)VENTION

At a time in which images, sound, information and accelerated  rhythm are the crudest realities of our ever-changing society, exploring new paths in poetics rapidly makes us aware that traditional poetry does not suffice to transmit, in an active and effective form, everything  we think, what we feel, everything  we want to express.

Writing is becoming an insufficient means of expression not only because of the wearing out of certain words, worn and torn by usage  but, principally, due to the lack of visual communication in  writing.

A message should be transmitted in such a way that its format as well as its contents contribute to rapid and profound apprehension of what is  meant to be transmitted. This is a question of both aesthetics and  practicality.

Thus it became necessary to increase the visual value of letters, syllables and words,  so that the act of reading could have another motivation and result in a more stimulating experience.

There were poets who began to set words in motion and to create new structures for them on the page, in a way that they had different possibleinterpretations. This multiplication of the meaning of words made possible a change in the relationship poet/poem/reader and this change resulted in another understanding of the reading, as there was a more creative interpretation of the contents of the poem than the relatively passive result of the  reading of  the linear and sequential, lyrical  poem.

In this  quest for a greater visual expressiveness of writing, some experiments were carried out, in which the images appeared associated with the words, resulting in an even greater intensity of reading and of the transmitted message.

 
It so happened that not only the content of the poem was  important  but also its form, that is, the form of the individual poem; more: the form also became the content and began to constitute a part of the poem, in such a way that it became impossible to (neither was it very important to) distinguish one from the other, seeing that the two, in conjunction, contributed to the transmission of  the message. But all of this investigative work placed the traditional method of writing - the book - in check. The method became limited, unable to permit greater plasticity and informative expressiveness.

Whereas the book fulfilled its function on a contents level, it soon revealed itself insufficient as a medium of transmission. The communicative process demanded more - as much in relation to  content and  form, as to the form of that content.

In books, the poem continued to be limited by the margins of the pages and reduced to the bi-dimensionality of the surface of the paper. For this reason other methods of transmitting poetry were employed: various methods of diffusing different signs, such as the object-poem, the installation, video, the computer and the performance.

The most accomplished of these media, the performance, began through its specific characteristics to transform the traditional concept of poetry and modify the entire relationship between the poet and the reader.

In the performance usedas a medium to transmit the poetic message, the poem received a new expressive liberty, acquiring other components such as movement, volume, colour, light and sound, which in their turn definitively altered the ideas of space and time in writing. Thus, what before was static in the poem, became profoundly aesthetic.

The performance or, more precisely: the poetical intervention (noting that, while in the performance the body is the main element in the formulation of the work, in the poetical intervention it functions more as an instrument of writing, since the writing itself is most important) in contrast to other media used in poetry, incorporates the poet himself as performer and factor of consecution of the poem.

By direct intervention of the poet, using his body as a means of poetical transmission and as a manipulator of the relative objects on stage, poetry becomes, for the very first time, truly interactive in all levels - both in the aspects of notions, materials, techniques and media (such as the slide-projector, the tape-recorder, the computer or the video) and in the nature of the creator/obcerver relationship.

As the author and the "reader" are present during the elaboration of the poem, the reaction of the "reader" is simultaneous with the action developed by the author. Therefore the interaction between action and reaction assumes an important part in the unfolding of the poem, altering completely the classical image of poetry.

Dissected by the performance, the poem cannot be defined as a finished work, static and immutable. The poem presents itself "live", and the poet becomes the producer of situations and emotions which continue to "write" his poem, departing from a pre-determined intention.

The spectator, in reacting to the development of the poem, is able to influence it, sometimes even altering its final form. This aspect is important to the comprehension of the interactive poem, and renders it more able to accomplish its communicative and informative functions because it offers us two paths creator/spectator and spectator/creator.

Using the performance as a medium, the poem ceases to be limited by the page and begins to occupy all of the surrounding space, which alters the spatial structure of the poem.

In the same way, the notion of time is significantly altered. In traditional poetry the poem is presented to the reader as a finished work, unchange-able and maintaining its form infinitely. With the poetical intervention, the idea of the immortality of the poem is surpassed perfectly. The poem exists only as it begins, progresses and terminates. It takes on a life of its own, with a beginning, middle and end, and ceases to be a sacred and untouchable object. And because the performance is unrepeatable (it is impossible to repeat it exactly), the summary of the poem stays only in the memory of those who enjoyed it, whereby for complete comprehension and assimilation of the poem, the "reader" must decode the multiplicity of related items, signs and feelings which comprise it, and should know how to relate them to himself.

Thus, because the poet intervenes actively and physically in the execution of the poem and - because the different signs are presented simultaneously and -because there exists an interrelationship of the meanings in each moment of the poem and -because various notions, techniques, and media are used and - because the notions of lime and space are significantly altered and - because the relationship between the poet/reader are transformed in a radical fashion and - because it is in the performance that the notion of interaction is best applied, we may consider the poetic intervention, at this time, to represent poetry raised to its highest exponent.