I think there is a great difference, in that when the poet is reading you get the whole personality of the person, especially if he's a good reader. Whereas a person just sitting gets what he puts into it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm very aware of the presence of a reader, and that probably is a reaction against a lot of poems that I do read which seem oblivious to my presence as a reader.
I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.
Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it, and every time you read it, depending on your conditions, you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel, once you have read it, you have grasped it.
And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping.
Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.
There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.
I believe that poems are a score for performance by the reader, and that you become the speaking voice. You don't read or overhear the voice in the poem - you are the voice in the poem.
I love poetry; it's my primary literary interest, and I suppose the kind of reading you do when you are reading poems - close reading - can carry over into how you read other things.
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.
Poetry and prose are of equal importance to me as a reader, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in my own writing.