Old Poetry Old Poetry Poetry • Poets • Essays • Forums •

Forums / Poet & Poem Questions /
Need advice on performing "Celebration of the Lizard" on author James Douglas Morrison


  • catbert836
    Oct 2 9:01 PM 2006
    Reply
    Hi, I'm on my school's Speech and Debate team, and I'm going into the event of Prose and Poetry this year. I was thinking of doing Jim Morrison's "The Celebration of the Lizard" as my piece, so I was wondering if there's anyone on this site who is familiar with Morrison or the Doors, and if so, is there any advice you could offer about how I could perform "Celebration", or suggest another poem or whatnot? Thanks in advance.

  • I-Like-Rhymes
    October 3, 2006
    Reply

    For What Its Worth

    My advice would be to get yourself a copy of the words, http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/38383 printed out to make notes on.
    Get yourself a couple of coloured highlighter pens.
    Read it out loud and mark such things as breathing points and changes of pace, upbeat and downbeat passages etc.
    Make sure you know what it means so you can relax with it.
    Read it many times until it's natural sounding to you.
    When you're happy with it then other people are more likely to be happy with you reading / reciting it.
    Don't try to imitate someone else's performance of it unless you are 100% comfortable with that performance.
    Jim
  • :