The Quiet Ear of Conversation

Lynch, Larry (2013) The Quiet Ear of Conversation. In: Essays on Performance Writing, Poetics and Pedagogy Vol.1. Shearsman Books, Exeter, UK. ISBN 978-1-84861-317-1

Abstract / Summary

This essay serves an introductory, framing function, in respect to the collection of John Hall's essays it opens. It does this by locating Hall's essaying within a broader discussion (in part prompted by his criticism of course) around two related concerns: 1) The evolution of arts pedagodgy (late 1960's - present) and 2) Specific approaches to reading and critically engaging new, often hybrid, textual practices. The essay uses the themes of 'listening' and 'conversing' to grant an otherwise quite wide ranging set of thoughts and propositions some focus and coherence. The essay suggests, that from the 'practical criticism' approach to literary study, to the kind of 'first principle' critical attention central to Hall's work, the comprehension of texts that resist recourse to cannonical or theoretical assumptions, requires forms of close reading and critical attention that uphold a decidedly 'art school' approach. The essay goes on to consider such approaches by moving between specific examples from Hall's criticism, to the context of pedagogic and curricular innovation at Dartington College of Arts - particularly those attached to the deveopment of the field of practice as research known as Performance Writing. By drawing reference to Hall's work on experimental poetry, Lone Twin Theatre, prosody and visual/spatial texts, the essay moves between specific examples of practice and commentary, and a broader set of remarks on teaching, curricula and institutional environments and their impact on the ways in which we might advance education through the making and reading of new literary / textual work. The essay offers a critically and contextually focussed preface to Hall's expository work, an acount of a particular moment in recent HE history, and some perspectives on ways in which thinking accross both can shed light on ways of teaching and reading oft neglected in the current educational climate.This output fits well with the other three submitted, in that it works as a nice 'locator' for Performance Writing, this being the root concern of all my reserach in this period.

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