I recently attended a poetry reading and open mic at Muddy Water Cafe in Tarrytown.
It was hosted by my friend Loretta, and it began with two featured readers followed by the open mic. Rather then comment too much on the performers, I want to write about poets as a community, a weird and necessary community.
As I sat there listening to my colleagues, I thought about how my life has shifted. I thought about where I had come from in terms of my career…
I worked as an English teacher for twenty five years, gradually tapering off my hours from full-time to part-time, to finally bidding my lovely career adieu for life as a writer. It’s been about three years now in this very different, very quiet, not- making-money-but-hope-to-someday-soon kind of “job.”
When I was an English teacher, I liked and respected my colleagues. I have fond memories of happy hours together, lunches, and poker parties, but I socialized even more with my ESL colleagues. ESL teachers are a special type. Travel is central to their lives, and they also tend to have other creative or artistic outlets. They are well-rounded. Life experiences teach them, just as much as they teach a language inside of a classroom.
I write this out of love, like a good book I savor and keep in my collection. I loved being a teacher. I was damn proud of what I did and truly grateful to be among such generous, funny, smart people.
But there was always this thing inside of me that made me know I couldn’t stay a teacher. It was a wilder calling, a less social, more solitary thing.
So why do I need a poet’s community, and why do I go to poetry readings? Here are five reasons:
1. To be with other strange people
2. To share fears and ideas of how and when and with whom we should get our work out there
3. To be vulnerable, ridiculous, and inspired
4. To know that when I step up to the mic, someone might be listening
5. To be at a party where words are center stage
When I choose to attend a reading, I listen and attach to certain phrases. The teacher in me can find goodness in almost anyone’s work. If I am to be truly honest, however, this is the teacher, not the writer. Poetry is art, and we all have our preferences.
I like it when:
1. Poets create whole universes in their work, places where they go, and characters who appear and float within gorgeous imagery
2. Poets make it clear that they are in love with words…so clear they use vocabulary that challenges me
3. Poets are funny, playful, eloquent, haunting, honest, crass…basically the whole range of emotions
4. Poets try forms and do them well…I love sonnets, pantoums, villanelles, and “slam” style poems with surprising rhymes
5. Poets are audience-aware, polite, and respectful of one another, the host, the venue, and the people who came to listen…
Poetry is important. Or at least I like to think it is. It’s a way to communicate in a peaceful and intelligent manner. It’s a way to connect. Poetry makes us think. I could go on and on about it, but I’ll end here…grateful that poetry exists and that it continues to feed my brain.
