The first lecture of the year was delivered by Imani Mason Jordan, a writer and performance artist focussing on the vocality, language and orality of the spoken poem. They search for the inherent song in a piece of text, and displayed an unwavering understanding of what that can mean. In one illuminating moment, she played several different versions of Frederic Rzewski’s 1974 composition, Coming Together, denoting which performances they did not like. Eloquently expressing why, be it the faint weakness of tone, or affected delivery, they displayed an inherent and articulate knowledge of something I may not have noticed.
Initially, I balked at their empirical view of “reading a poem the wrong way”. Part of me recognises and sympathises with the observation; universally, I think we have all experienced that, or could envisage through cultural osmosis what that could look like. However, I have always felt that introducing the idea of correctness to be damaging and peremptory. Taste is taste, but who are any of us to suggest that there are standards? Especially in the markedly insular, soupy world of avant-garde performance poetry. Yet, with every poor example Imani Mason Jordan persuasively demonstrated and noted, I could not help but agree.
It is precisely this persuasive quality that Imani Mason Jordan imbues her work with, finding the register of oration used when trying to warn or convince. To persuade you to feel the weight of her chosen text, exploring the intentionality of discordance. Their inspirations include James Baldwin and his protest speeches, Abbey Lincoln, Dionne Brand and Elaine Mitchener. As a writer, Imani Mason Jordan draws from literature a great deal.
The principal piece they showed was TREAD/MILL, from 2021. A work-in-progress performance combining reciting elements from Rzewski’s Coming Together while running on a treadmill, backed by a soundscape by Felix Taylor. It gestures towards the penal connotation the treadmill carries; historically used as a method of punishment in British prisons and colonies. In its current form, it seemed a very stark, rawly affecting work that engages with the performative qualities found at the very authentic fringes of exhaustion.