Last night was a lot of fun.
Purposeful emphasis there, as the stage was set for everything to go awry and derail my fledgling return to writing and publicly reading poetry as the show was unexpectedly moved to the upstairs lounge because of construction on the main floor and I’ve never liked that space. Bad feng shiu and all that.
But all was good as I signed up for the open slam — 17 Love Poems with No Despair SLAM! — read my new poem — Mariah @ the Dive Bar — and made the second round. Of course, I hadn’t really thought the whole slam thing through and was unprepared for a second round, so I read one of CK’s poems as my follow-up, a three-voice piece about being bisexual that made for an interesting challenge. Not sure which one I’m reading in this picture, but the perplexed look on my face probably works for either one.
Jason Carney was the feature and it was great hearing him again, as he did a nice mix of old and new [to me, at least] work. He looked well, too, which was nice to see. (Many pictures @ Flickr)
It was a day full of pleasant flashbacks as earlier at work, editing and rewriting the poem that I’d started writing on Friday afternoon in some random, not-quite-dive bar on the west side, I felt like I was channeling Peter of the Earth, both in the pop culture references in the piece itself and my intonation and cadence as I was rehearsing it. I don’t think I ended up reading it that way at the slam, but it was weird how clearly I could hear his voice. I ended up dedicating it to him and to Lynne, as well as “to anyone who’s ever lost a few IQ points to a pop song” in a bit of slam gamesmanship, making a reference to Emily Kagan’s piece earlier in the round.
Afterwards, we adjourned to Reservoir, and a good time was had by all.
Thursday, it’s the Nuyorican, where it all started, and I have to admit to already being more than a little nervous about reading there!
