Publikacija SEP 2011 - Vilenica

already been said on sound poetry, like a music sheet. But nevertheless,
the lesson of Dadaism and its approach to performing one’s work
is that, in the context of contemporary poetry, a poetry performance is
an event: not in the sense of costumes, “verses without words” and the
like, but in the sense of the author’s engagement in the interpretation,
which can be completely ordinary – what is important is the engagement
of the author as a person, as someone who creates; it is similar
to the act of writing or composing a poem. And that is (or was) the
lesson of Dadaism.
V. Is the Author’s Performance an Appendage of His/Her Work
I would answer yes to the question above. Why If the question is
derived from the rather popular question what is a book, then we can
say that today, the auratic perception of a literary work lies mainly
in the performance. First and above all, the question what is a book
is characterised by the complex relationship between the book as an
object on the one hand, and the book as an intellectual or aesthetic
work on the other. Its auratic perception is thus less central, perhaps
less interesting at first glance, but is certainly a unique aspect of literature
in general. By “auratic perception” I am referring to Walter
Benjamin’s famous concept of the aura and its value in art in the time
of reproduction. This (not only sociological) perception (of literature),
which refers to the relationship between the author and the listener,
can only grow in the public performance (of the author) as a unique
and unrepeatable dimension of a literary work, a poem, for example.
(No, I do not agree with Paz’s thinking in his famous essay, Los signos
en rotación – Signs in Rotation –, where he says that “poetry enters us
through the eyes rather than the ears”. And: “Besides, we read only
for ourselves.” 4 ) In the context discussed above, a poetry collection
is – today, at least, for we do not know what the future will bring
4 Octavio Paz: Izbrane pesmi in izbrani eseji, (selected and translated by Ferdinand Miklavc,
Cankarjeva založba, Ljubljana 1993 (Nobelovci; 102), p. 199); Slovene translation
[Translator's note].
18