Live poetry reading... Or an online poetry reading...

[Sherlock77]

Basically my choice tonight

One poetry reading series I enjoy is still doing their monthly reading over Zoom!

But a new venue is hosting a poetry reading as well, actual live performers in front of me, not on a computer...

Actually a rather easy choice, I'm driving to the new venue and not "staying in to go out"

Off in a few minutes, and looking forward to it

 

[Sunny1]

Have fun!

 

[Darkkin]

There is truly something special about any live preformance that is unique to the moment. Enjoy.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Sounds like a fun and stimulating night.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

My favorite poem is:

Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

I was lucky as a child to hear him e. e. Cummings. I always look toward the words to see how they have been crafted.

 

[Thinx]

Yes I love poetry! Some people are really great at performing it too.

Still plenty of covid out there though, open windows, distancing and wearing a mask are still good practice to avoid it. Recently an acquaintance and 14 others got it on an outdoor picnic! Maybe a superspreader there, or some shared food passed it along? Acquaintance now hyper conscious of it! Another acquaintance got it at an indoor band event, less surprisingly. Now off work quite poorly. It hasn't gone away, unfortunately.

Covid's not
Defunct...
Enjoy, but also
Take
Care.

 

[Sherlock77]

It was a good night, about 15 people there... The venue is mostly an art gallery of sorts but very much community oriented... And had an interesting chat with an old friend of mine, he is a slam poet with ADHD, he also shared with me how he is completely sober now (and drug free) for six years... He also happens to be our current poet laureate, something I would not have imagined with him from the past he described to me...

One crappy cell phone photo:

 

[Darkkin]

Slam poetry is a medium that truly needs to be heard live. Trying to critique it in a written form hobbles a huge part of its impact. A single dimension instead of the four it requires.

Regionally speaking my home area is in the high desert of poetry readings and discussions outside of the university and a majority of that is so dry and desiccated it makes sawdust sound interesting. Some of their stuff is so esoterically obscure even they don't know what they're talking about. They sound really smart, but does anyone enjoy it? Not so much.

(I seriously gave it the benefit of the doubt, but if one is not a member of the elite clique, one is treated as less and not considered skilled enough to participate even in open mic events. The clique hoards the time and monopolizes the space.

As a glass rabbit writer, I tend to be an aberration because of my use of parables presented in classic forms. My own work is always glaringly literal instead of being steeped in metaphor, which I always fail to understand. Academic poetry can be stifling in the extreme simply because of its nature. This is the stuff that gets published in the obscure poetry journals, but never ends up on bookstore shelves.

And what is so frustrating is that poetry groups within my own area are so hide bound about how poetry is defined that they ignore anything that doesn't fit into their pre-approved box. Poetry like autism is a spectrum, not a linear progression.)

Most stuff is still online only or a three hour drive away. (Thusly the only readings I get to now are my own when I edit by reading aloud.)