TOEFL Listening Practice: Lecture11
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MP3 SoundCloud
Answer
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- A, B
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- A, B
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Transcript
| Joseph: | So guys, what’s our topic? | |
| Leah: | The demise of poetry. I’m not convinced, though. | |
| Joseph: | About what? | |
| Carla: | That it’s in demise. I mean, it’s not like there’s a dearth of poetry out there, or even a lack of interest in it. I remember when I was looking for college courses. There were so many courses in poetry – studying it and writing it. And they wouldn’t offer those courses if they weren’t popular. | |
| Joseph: | I think it’s that people just aren’t reading it honestly, unless they are academically interested, of course. People don’t read it for pleasure like they do novels. | |
| Carla: | Maybe there aren’t so many new interesting poetry books coming out. | |
| Leah: | I don’t think that’s the case. Actually, I read somewhere that poetry books are being read more than ever, but, as Joseph said, no-one bothers with them except academics and other poets. It’s become a self-enclosed discipline. | |
| Joseph: | So that leads to the focus of our discussion, what’s to be done about it? | |
| Carla: | Well, I read an article by Dana Gioia –he used to be the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He said that the way to counter this trend is through performance. | |
| Joseph: | Live poetry readings? | |
| Carla: | Of a sort. | |
| Joseph: | I can’t see why that would help, honestly. Poetry readings, like book sales, are in decline. They barely take place anywhere except on college campuses. | |
| Carla: | Well, that’s not quite what I mean. Obviously, something that’s in decline isn’t going to spontaneously take off due to its own merit. But in some circles, poetry … live poetry is very much alive. | |
| Leah: | Where? | |
| Carla: | Have you heard of slams? | |
| Leah/Joseph: | No. | |
| Carla: | Slams have been going on since the mid-1980s. It’s a gathering, and five or so people are picked as judges. Poets read out their poems, and the judges rate them. Gradually people get knocked out. Winners get to compete at higher levels. It’s like sports. They’re really popular. They take place all over the world. | |
| Leah: | I think if they were popular, I would have heard of them. | |
| Carla: | Even so, it’s certainly an alive art, not a dying one, as our professor would have us believe. Teens are particularly into it, cos anyone can go in for it, and you don’t have to have any academic credentials to enter. It’s just a way to express yourself. Like poetry is meant to be. | |
| Leah: | So why don’t we ever read slam poetry on our course? | |
| Carla: | I don’t know. I suppose academics consider slams irrelevant, maybe because its ultimate purpose is to win a prize, rather than the intrinsic beauty of poetry. | |
| Leah: | I’m not convinced. I’d like to read some, and judge for myself. | |
| Joseph: | Me too. So how does that relate to our subject of debate? | |
| Carla: | Clearly, if academics backed slam poetry, it’d become an even more popularized art form. Dah. | |
| Leah: | Seems pretty straightforward to me. Another method I came across is radio. There’s a programme on NPR called The Writer’s Almanac. Have you heard it? | |
| Joseph/Carla: | No. | |
| Leah: | It’s only five minutes long, but during it, the host talks about some notable poets or writers from history, then reads a poem. Apparently it’s a huge success. They released anthologies of the most popular poems from the show. And, they’re both still in print now. | |
| Joseph: | I’m hesitant to believe that a five-minute radio programme can be said to be maintaining the popularity of poetry. Maybe if it was an entire radio station of poetry… | |
| Leah: | Nevertheless, if people didn’t like poetry, the programme would cease to air, and those anthologies wouldn’t have sold. And, more to the point, that poetry revival, albeit small, took place entirely outside the academic subculture. | |
| Joseph: | Fair point. I think it’s relevant to talk about rap here, too. | |
| Carla: | Rap? | |
| Joseph: | Definitely. – I mean real rap, not the vulgar, commercialised stuff. It fits the poetry definitions after all. I mean, check this out. It usually adheres to the four-stress, accentual rhythm; it’s spoken, not sung, and it expresses the feelings of an alienated segment of society, I mean, what is poetry if it’s not that? | |
| Leah : | I suppose it’s the music that puts academics off claiming it as such. | |
| Joseph: | And yet the Beats used to recite their poems in coffee houses to the rhythm of bongos, nonetheless. It’s just a medium of presentation. | |
| Leah: | I’m still not sure if I agree. you could say that any rhythmical expression of feeling is poetry. That includes…Oh, I don’t know – songs, even greetings cards messages. | |
| Joseph: | Even so, if it has two characteristics that have distinguished poetry in ages past—regular meter, and popularity, then it should be credited as poetry. And that’s more than you can say about poems that the academic world are churning out. |