ABSTRACT
Discussions centred on the emotional experience of a performance poem can often be frustrated by the difficulties in establishing a mutual framework for evaluation. As such, our capacity to understand and share the personal encounter of a particular performance can suffer from the lack of a common critical approach. Using Hit the Ode – one of the UK’s longest running continuous spoken word events – as a reference point, this chapter investigates the apprehension and exchange of affect through the lens of Theresa Brennan’s theories concerning affect transmission. The aim of this investigation is to establish a common framework which can enhance our capacity to communicate our shared experiences and to demonstrate how performance poetry is a site par excellence for the education of our affective drives.
