Timelines and Mood Music

I never cease to be amazed at how delays or music can affect my readiness and focus. I had a couple of my Nats poems in my pocket last night, ready to catch some handy practice with a live audience, when the night got off to a slow start. Don't get me wrong--a late start was definitely okay, considering the many extra activities on the agenda. But my inherent lack of focus in a crowd without tuning everyone out... my general weariness... that my mood was off, none of this was any excuse: My name got called early in the open mic, and I was NOT ready. Head ready, no. Poem ready, no. Mic ready, not in the least. Heart ready? Well... I did go through with it.

Of course, I had just done a feature the week before under heavy fire of background music, background noise, and extraordinary levels of bar-patron chattiness. Talk about losing focus then--whew! So ,what to read tonight was a pretty tough call. I felt like my feature last week pretty much bombed, but folks in the crowd who'd never seen me do ma thing before... they enjoyed the work. I owe them. They deserved better. Maybe there'll be another time.

Okay, so what does that mean? We are poets. Some of us have years of experience reading or performing our work in live audience. So people should just be able to drop a coin in the slot and hear a poem, right? Wronnnng! Can't so much consistently do that as one could consistently WRITE a poem given a prompt (no matter what Dave Baratier says with his tongue all hung up in his cheek). You may get something done, but it won't be stellar, it won't be heart felt, and it darned sure won't be a true reflection of excellence in your craft. It'll just be that poem you wrote under durress, that one you sold out to create, that one you read when you should have been quiet.

I admit I'm being selfish here. After all, sharing ourselves through art is what poetry is all about. About admitting we can't solve the world's problems and accepting the fact we can only affect it one listener at a time. Or wanting to send great calming vibes out to those few who, for some reason, find a moment's calm, a moment's release, or a moment's joy in our work. Reflecting upon the overlooked, the understated long enough to give that unspoken its voice. We live for those moments, but sometimes we are all just human.

Sometimes listening is the best thing a performance poet (I belie the term) can do in an active room.