Poetry as literature and performance: Toward a negotiation model of verbal and performative aesthetics

This article examines the relationship between poetry as a verbal structure and poetry as a performative event by positioning verbal aesthetics and performative aesthetics as two modes that dynamically negotiate with one another.  The study addresses the tendency to view poetry reading as merely transferring a text from the page to the stage, although poetic actualization involves voice, body, space, temporality, and the conditions of performance. The study employs an interpretive qualitative approach with comparative textual-performative analysis of two Indonesian poems, namely “Gerilya” by W. S. Rendra and “Ke Pelabuhan” by Toeti Heraty, together with audiovisual documentation of their performances. The analysis proceeds in three stages: identifying verbal-aesthetic structures, examining performative elements, and comparing the two to identify forms of meaning negotiation. The findings show that repetition, imagery, rhythm, and syntactic structure in the texts provide performative potential that is actualized through vocal quality, tempo, pauses, gesture, bodily presence, and spatial configuration. Across the two cases, reinforcement and shifts receive the strongest empirical support, whereas expansion is primarily evident in the addition of spatial-temporal dimensions of experience. On this basis, the article proposes a Negotiation Model of Verbal and Performative Aesthetics, which views poetic meaning as the outcome of dynamic interaction between verbal structure and performative actualization. The model complements intermediality by focusing specifically on the mechanisms of meaning-making when poetry operates across media