Performers: The Rhymer

Behold an excellent job done in "Mark Grist on Girls who read". The voice is natural, so much so that it might be difficult for many of us to perceive where his introduction stops and the poem begins. He uses hand and facial gestures well. In short and aside from the objections mentioned below, he is utterly believable as a person being interviewed in an informal setting.




We see three flaws that are common among slammers:

1. he talks too fast, a bad habit probably picked up while trying to make time limits at slams and open mics;



2. his cadence/meter is off and his sonics nonexistent, giving the piece a pop-up rhyming prose effect; and,



3. his rhymes, while subtle in places, are too glaring for a piece that is at least semi-serious. That is, they tend to be perfect rhymes and too close throughout.

Note that the latter two refer to the writing rather than to the performance per se. Nevertheless, he is the author, writing with an eye toward that performance, and should understand that poor rhythm and proximate moon-june rhymes are going to protrude on the stage.

All of that said, this is the best presentation by far and thus far in this series.