Reading Out Loud
Guest columnist and poet Shann Palmer describes what it's like to read at the Austin Poetry Festival. Shann wrote this article as a special feature for Poetry@suite101.com.
When my friend moved to Austin, Texas, I was devastated! It might as well have been a million miles away, I missed him like crazy! We'd worked closely for seven years. I was Judy Garland to his Mickey Rooney, putting on shows with no budget, no idea what we were getting into. We were always just this side of trouble.
Born in Houston, I hadn't been back to Texas in eighteen years. I was in the grip of homesickness. In Virginia an ice storm lasted through most of Christmas break. I was cold. He'd write about seventy-five degree days. I was sad--I think it's that low-light winter depression thing--and I was facing the spring play with a serious drama teacher who hated musicals.
Browsing the Net over break, I searched for a writers' conference that was close enough to drive to and cheap enough to get the school to pay for, when, what to my wandering eyes did appear, but the Austin International Poetry Festival!
Held in mid-April, it would be the weekend before the play. I had no money and the prospect was terrifying. This was the "big guns", REAL poets, performance artists, even Slam, but it was in Texas. I sent in the registration fee and made plans to get there.
Working out details wasn't easy. I did some begging, borrowing, and I stole a little time out of my crazy schedule but, by gum, my plane touched down on the runway the day before the festival. I had poems in my bag and brand new shoes on my feet!
The air smelled different, dryer, warmer. The sky really was bluer and bigger. My first night I ate Tex-Mex food and drank a marguarita, then slept like a cowpuncher who'd done a good day's work.
Registration would begin at 3PM at the community college. I was skittish as a puppy. I'd done readings at home. I even have a little jazz trio that accompanies me. We've played coffee houses and folk venues, but this was different.
They arrived-- regular people and irregular people. Some of them, dressed in black, had various visible, and no doubt hidden, piercings. They all seemed to know each other. I went to the bathroom to check my cool quotient a few times, I even pretended to write a poem, as if I could have right then.
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