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Back here, I noted QuickMuse as worth watching, shared a piece of its creator’s essay on improvisation. QuickMuse reminds me a little of the tradition of Kabigaan (or Kobigaan if you’re talking India and not Bangladesh). (Note: all emphases mine)

Kobials (folk poets). The instinctive folk poets sing or recite their compositions in front of appeciative audiences. Humerous and witty Kabigaans are often sprinkled with metaphorical ornamentations and riddles - drawn from materials, events and titbits of life. Kabials create popular verses in front of their eager and attentive audience. Not only do they build their lyrical masterpieces on the spot confronting their rivals, they compose musical scores for them on the fly as they recite their verses. They attack thier opponents with apparently unanswerable questions and riddles; the opponents solve the puzzles with equal mastery and leave behind a counter question. This process continues until one side concedes to the other for that session. To generations of villagers kabigaan had been an immense source of entertainment, pleasure and wisdom. Such was the depth of wit, emotion, romanticism and wisdom in their creation and such was their melodious rendition that they would leave an indelible mark on the audience. The audience would continue to recite those pieces for a long time to come. These verses, which often included references to great characters from the Indian epics Mahabharat and Ramayan, would serve as becons for thousands. The instructive power of some of these creations would later provide many with simple how-to guides to fulfilling life and salvation after death. Many kabials of past centuries had left their legendary mark on the Bengali heritage - some of their memorable riddles still do and will continue to fascinate vast majority of village folks.

Ramesh Shil (died in 1967) was a star of these bards. According to the Daily Star, Shil

became notable for his excellence in the ability of improvisation of songs in poetic contests known as Kobigaan. This queer trend of poetic contest evolved in Kolkata and its outskirts in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kobial Ramesh Shil along with Mukundadas of Barisal and Sheikh Gumani of Murshidabad followed those pioneers in the 19th and 20th centuries. These rural bards were called Kobials and they were all born-poets and could improvise verse and hurl strophes and antistrophes at each other in contests.

Although the subject matter of such poetic contests were traditionally taken from the Puranas, Ramesh also made songs on contemporary events–social, political and financial problems. He composed songs on events such as the Non-cooperation and the Khilafat movements, the looting of the Chittagong armoury, self-sacrifice of Surya Sen, the famines, partition, refugee problems, the Language Movement of 1952, and the social injustice, corruption and exploitation that he had himself witnessed.

Before him, Kobigan was seen only as a means of entertainment, but Ramesh Shil made it an instrument with which to transform society. He tried to arouse people with his songs and attempted to stir them against these social and political ills.

TechCrunch has found QuickMuse:

QuickMuse is a new site where well known poets battle it out in a fifteen minute race to pen the most compelling text inspired by a thought provoking quote about art. The live event is archived so you can watch each keystroke beside a ticking clock and then discuss the race and poetry in the site’s forum.

It’s fun to watch the pauses, deletions, misspellings and bursts of text that come from great poets writing against the clock.

QuickMuse has lassoed some high quality poets. The first contest, or agon as the Greeks called them, was between Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon and Thylias Moss, recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship and the Whiting Award. The second agon, held last week, pitted former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky against the prolific author Julianna Baggott.

After the last agon (Greek, formal challenge or contest with an audience), Julianna Baggot wrote about her experience, or rather participated in a q-and-a session, about it. You have to go read the whole rich thing, but a few snippets:

QuickMuse: Can you describe what it felt like to improvise online? Was it difficult or thrilling (or both) to have total strangers — lots of them — watch over your shoulder as you typed?

Julianna Baggott: I realized watching Moss and Muldoon’s replays that this was a new medium for the poem in a few specific ways. If you could watch their poems unfold, quickly, then you would be fed a poem in a way that the page has never allowed. In fact, I envision all kinds of innovations coming from this.

…

It allows for interaction with the audience. And because of the intimacy with the audience it could give rise to higher emotion and humanity (and a real opportunity for humor).

Baggott (who has most recently collaborated with Steve Almond on a novel) goes on to talk about her awareness of audience and response to response she received in the discussion forum about her poem — the idea of which is really not business as usual. People are commenting on these improvisations? The improvisers are reading them! And admitting to care about them! Baggott has a new fan, at least one.

QM: Looking at your finished poem now, are there any revisions you’d like to make? Any chance we’ll see a revision in print somewhere?

JB: Of course. Someone wrote in to get rid of “taught,” which I added last minute. So right. And there are lots of other things, too many to catalogue.

Then she goes on to say some things that give me some glimpses into the tension I’ve been experiencing with this compulsion to want to return to making poems:

Because I’m a fiction writer — and hip-deep in a novel at present — one would think I’d be more prose-y, naturally, right out of the starting gate. But because I have an outlet for storytelling and the slower scene, I don’t want to do it in poetry. I come to poetry so ready to rid myself of the burdens of fiction — overjoyed to have this place that allows for explosiveness. (But I am narrative. My thoughts connect like circus elephants. I’ve tried to be less so, from time to time, in poetry. But I’m wired that way, and my poems that fight it are incredibly lousy. Perhaps speed helps me take more leaps?)

Tomorrow Marge Piercy and Jonathan Galassi are up, live at 9:30 PM (EST) and then will be archived on the website.

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And I also learned from TechCrunch, the comments, that the QuickMuse design is also something fairly remarkable:

[Search Engines WEB, June 12th, 2006 at 5:36 pm] This is possibly one of the most artistically aesthetically designed sites in the history of the Web - no animations or hi tech flash - just CSS done with EXTREME STYLISHNESS - and to boot - it loads fast WOW!