my element

fish have water, birds have thermal updrafts, i have open mics.

last night, i read to my poet friends, whom i am enjoying more and more as time goes by. the one who races through his poems, and i'm always saying, slow down! the one who reads with grace and ease, but when he takes the mike he seems tenative. there is something about a mic and podium.

hearing your own words projected like that. there is no hiding.

and making eye contact is hard, but worthwhile. it is essential, i think.

reading with your head down, eyes riveted to the page, does not futher your point, deliver your message, though i've seen many poets do it, the big ones, don't. simple as that.

i need to get my dodge tickets.

and the heat has come again.

humid, oppressive heat. and i still opened all the windows because i need to see out. i need to hear the birds.

a poem i wrote, which i maybe shouldn't have read aloud, because someone said it had a part that didn't necessarily belong, well, i read it anyway, and i knew it belonged. i could hear the poem in my mind. i knew the poem would fly. and it flew.

it lifted off and circled the room, dancing in midair.

and i grasped the podium at one point, leaned in, and read.

it was a good time. and we need to workshop these performances, because it matters what you choose. the stories you tell. it matters to the listeners. it matters to you.

if a poem is significant enough, if you feel it through your bones. if you vibrate with every syllable of it, then it will fly. (provided you don't screw up the delivery, rare is the poem that can survive the quavering voice, the downcast head, the rushing through of nervousness).

but when you stand there, in the moment, in the presence of your poem. and you read with your true voice. make the sound you make, large and loud. it will fly, it always does.

the audience responds to that presence.

and it was strange because the lady who organized the read and was the feature, had such a monotone voice, not a bad monotone. not the droning white noise of a spinning fan, but a happy, almost too soft kind of vocalization, that is the only way i can describe it--happy--because that is how she strikes me. and good for her, but happy doesn't make for a good read.

there's more to it than there seems to be. and we are in agreement, that we need to workshop reading our poems. and keep having these library readings, even if only we attend, so we can get better and stronger.


peace. out.