A POETRY READING IN THE NEW ERA

Yesterday, I gave my first poetry reading in the new era. I say that because I believe the old way of doing poetry readings—of doing most things, really—is over. Even when the pandemic ends, we will be living in a different dimension, one in which Zoom and its like are sure to play a part. Hybrids of Zoom-plus-live-plus-recorded readings are sure to arise, as well as technological-cum-living monsters and angels we could never have envisioned.

Fairly well acquainted with Zoom though I am, I felt a certain strangeness as I “entered” the room for the schmooze session that generally precedes most virtual meetings today. The event was sponsored by Carmine Street Metrics, a sprawling group of formally oriented poets that, pre-Covid, ran monthly readings at a funky tiki bar called Otto’s Shrunken Head on New York’s Lower East Side. I was there most every Sunday, bourbon or scotch in hand, embracing friends, reading at the richly populated open mic or as a featured reader, selling my books and buying those of others.

Very few of these interactions could go on via Zoom. No exchanges or sales of books. No gossiping, except by writing on the chat bar (and assuming the terrifying risk that you might reveal your tidbit to the whole group). No hanging out at the bar. No gathering at small tables. The sense of interpersonal distance was palpable. And yet here, before my eyes, were the faces of my community. The audience had swelled hugely from what it might have been if the performance was fleshly, encompassing folks who could attend and read from places like Los Angeles, Carbondale, Illinois, and The Netherlands. There were clear advantages to doing it this way, although they didn’t really make up for the irreplaceable loss of close human contact.

Still, it was lovely to see familiar faces close up, clear and unguarded—to study them, to read to them. I found I could listen more closely, at my desk, to the work of my co-features Allison Joseph and Susan de Sola and that of the open mikers, where, here and there, a gem might pop up thrillingly. Another advantage was the ease with which such a reading could be recorded (in this case by one of the poet-hosts, Anton Yakovlev, who, along with Wendy Sloane and Terese Coe, runs the reading series). The tape of the fesitivities could then be distributed widely, as I’ve done by means of the link above. Indeed, I’ve already gone back to the tape and listened closely to the reading of a fine poem by one of the open-mikers that I’d missed.

I want to keep these observations short and tentative, befitting of our uncertain current moment. But I found that reading this way enabled me to be more focused on the poems I was reading and attentive to how I was reading them—changing and adjusting my tone to fit the part being read, for instance—than I would on a podium before a living audience. Not better or worse, just different.

O brave new world, that has such features in it!