Poets amalgamated
Sir: P..1 • Kavanagh's 'Postscript' of 19 November asked, 'why do people come to poetry readings? What do they want of us?' Some of those committed to purifying and 'replenishing the dialects of today's global tribes will be reading, chanting and acting out their work at the Young Vic Theatre on 3 and 5 December for this year's London Poetry Olympics. One of the 'heats' is dedicated to Frances Horovitz, who re- mains an unparallelled exponent of oral verse, as witness the recordings and film of her which we will be relaying. Other of the 31 unabashedly professional readers taking part are John Cooper Clarke, Ivor Cutler, Fran Landesman, R.D. Laing, Jeff Nuttall,' Molly Parkin, Brian Patten, Harold Pinter, the Raving Beauties, Anne Stevenson, Hank Wangford and Heathcote Williams. I think they'll prove once again that poetic page and public stage are rarely in competi- tion; at best they are complementary phases in a single process, and a profoundly heal- ing one.
Michael Horovitz
Piedmont, Bisley, Gloucestershire
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