The Listening Zone

Humour is an important element of the performance poet's style, being one of the most effective means of holding people's attention and keeping their goodwill. On 'The Chicken Coup', a humorous character, portrayed by Dunlop, sets up a macro-narrative which acts as a containing-device for all the other pieces in the set. We are with a farmer or farm labourer who has accidentally chopped off somebody's finger whilst attempting to behead a chicken, and who is now trying to distract that person by talking about poetry whilst dressing the wound and waiting for the ambulance.

What this recording demonstrates is that in the hands of someone like Dunlop, performance poetry can encompass a whole range of different styles, and crowd-pleasing entertainment is only one of them. Not all the material here is equally successful, but it displays an encouraging willingness to experiment, both in terms of writing techniques and of engaging with new media; and there are several pieces which deserve and repay close attention and repeated listening.

To read the full review by Edward Picot, founder of The Hyperliterature Exchange, see http://hyperex.co.uk/reviewmacdunlop.php.