Reading Report from Hugo House, Even More Readings, and Thoughts on Performance

Sorry I didn’t post this earlier – I didn’t get home from last night’s reading (four readers plus open mike – whew!) until 11:30, and then I ate dinner and collapsed. We didn’t get any pics last night (low lighting meant blurry photos and our video was shaky and blurry as well- sorry!) but it was a packed house at Hugo House’s Cheap Wine and Poetry night – about eighty people and extra spilling out into hallways and porch…definitely a reading series worth visiting! The crowd was friendly, slightly tipsy, and raucous. I met and got to chat with lots of great folks. And I sold some books, always a welcome thing.
This reading made me realize I really had been away for a couple of years – this reading series became so vibrant while I was in CA! The Richard Hugo House in Seattle has been undergoing a series of personnel changes, as well, so I’m getting to know new people. I didn’t recognize many people in the audience, either, so I was really grateful for my handful of friends who came. Sometimes I take for granted that I know all the poets in Seattle, but you know what? I don’t! It’s a big town full of folks I’ve never met!
I hadn’t met any of my fellow readers before, though one (Elizabeth Colen) was even a fellow Steel Toe Books author! The three other readers were all interesting, gifted female writers (hence, the “Ladies’ Night” theme event) each with a different style of performance – one quiet and shy reading straight out of her book, another a performance-oriented poet who had everything memorized and mesmerized the crowd in her fishnets. I think I’m somewhere in the middle, though I confessed to someone last night I think I would be a lot more comfortable at readings if I could just put a potted plant in front of my face as I read. I think the combination of vulnerability of reading your own work and the physical performance aspects of trying to be interesting/entertaining to an audience can be really challenging. I like reading but afterward I always feel like I’ve just gone twelve rounds with a boxing robot.
This reading made me think about the choices we make about how to present out poems – how performance can both enhance – and distract from – our poetry. Hearing a poem is so different from reading it on the page, and I try now to be aware of that, to slow down my naturally frenetic speech patterns, to try to make space for applause, a laugh, an offhand comment to connect with an audience. I also thought it was interesting that the other readers had been publishers, reading series hosts, editors, teachers and in other ways were connecting with their communities – something I think is really important! That probably explains the large crowd, come to think of it.
Now I have to get ready for Sunday’s reading at the new Northwest Bookfest in Kirkland, with friends Kelli Russell Agodon, Elizabeth Austen, and Susan Rich. It looks like it’s going to be a great time, I just have to get my energy back up! (Plus I have to catch up on writing work – a job application needs to be turned in, a poetry contest entry (or two) needs to be sent out, poems in general have been languishing from lack of attention! Promoting a new book tends to eat up all the extra time and energy in your life if you let it…I need to be sure to set aside as much writing time as promoting time…) Hope to see you Sunday or sometime soon!