ABSTRACT
This chapter will endeavour to explore the poet–audience relationship and how it can work as a co-authorship where both sides add meaning to the piece. It will examine this through the writing and performances of poets Buddy Wakefield and Shane Koyczan. It will examine how poetry functions in performance. Rhythm is an essential element of poetry and of meaning in poetry. In a live performance how an audience reacts, whether it be laughter, gasps or even silence can have a very powerful effect on the rhythm of the poem and therefore its meaning. Drucker wrote that a performance of a poem is a ‘real time event’ (1998) and exists only in the moment. Therefore, if the audience can be influential on the delivery they are affecting the entire performance and adding their own meaning to it. It will also challenge Barthes notion of the death of the author as it will argue that the writer/performer and audience must enter into a living and active partnership for performance poetry to be experienced.
