How does the poem differ in its two recensions? What role does the spoken word (orality) privilege? What does reading privilege? What does the textual writing space (unconventional as it is) play in the transmission of writing?
Poems like the one we are analyzing are meant to be performed orally. It is the interaction (however mediated it might me) between the poet and the audience that adds a deeper level of understanding. The spoken word privileges the performer's attitude, tone, irony and particular way of delivering his poem. In this case, Taylor Mali's physical and personal interpretation of his poem is just as important as the message he is trying to deliver. The different types of intonation and force between certain words make the listeners' experience more vivid and dramatic.
On the other hand, the textual space focuses more in the message the poet is trying to get across than in the way he does it. To be fair, we should have seen the textual representation without any kind of sound, to get exclusively the experience written word could provide. Though the message did come across clearly (and this was even done in a creative way, like with the figure of a tree being cut down) I feel like it loses some of its power, as if we don't get to feel the full experience that orality could give us.
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