Life & Death in the Open Section - the art of the poetry reading
was involved in concerned a group of poets in a bar waiting for a poetry reading to start. Kind of like waiting for Godot, only this was waiting for the master of cereminies. There are numerous possible scenarios and situations that can be employed, e.g.: poets in a dole office; poets sharing a house; a poet trying to write his opus while beset by the manifestations of his muses, who happen to be the spirits of other poets, etc., etc. Make of it what you like. The reading-as-play is opens up the possibilities of poetry, and is susceptible to the imagining of countless worlds, limited by nothing but the vision of its poet/participants.
For those who are not up to such complicated contrivances, who may only just be testing the waters of this "blood sport", fear not. A good poem is a good poem no matter what the context, and is capable of creating its own miraculous world without anything other than the true voice of the true poet. Don't be intimidated by audiences, either their praise or their abuse. Believe in them at your own peril. They will love you one day and hang you the next.
And never, ever, apologise for anything you're about to read. The worst crime of the budding performance poet is to stand at the microphone and say: "Well, uh, anyway... uh... this poem I wanna read, it's not really very good... and uh... I'm, uh, still working on it, and don't really like it too much, and uh, well, anyway... I hope you do..." If that's the way you feel about a poem, DON'T read it. Don't make excuses. There is no excuse for bad poetry. It is no use telling me or anyone else what you meant to do, or say, or be! No one cares. Art either is or isn't. Good intentions mean nothing.
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