WRITING FOR READING
Last night I attended an open mic at Monkey Wrench Books hosted by Queer Sol, an arts collective based here in Austin. I read three poems: “Girl dies in Arizona,” “An afternoon at the museum,” and “Monologue of a mystery writer.” I haven’t read in years — I think the last time was in New York or maybe at a reading in Brooklyn. I vaguely recall holding a shaking piece of paper at the front of a dark bar and reading a vignette about Bonnie and Clyde, which I now recognize as an overly dramatic analogy for my abrupt move to (and from) Portland, Oregon, with a lover back in 2000. God only knows where that piece is now.
I stopped going to open mics and poetry events when slam poetry became the de facto genre. I don’t have any issues with slam poetry per se, but I think its current market dominance makes it difficult for smaller voices to be heard. “Smaller” is not a pejorative. I simply mean there is a difference between writing for an largely invisible audience — writing for reading — and writing for performance. Slam poetry is raucous, intense performance; poetry “readings” less so — but no less affecting. My preference is obviously for the latter; I feel more comfortable reading in a literary, not performative, context. The readings I enjoy aren’t competitive, but there is still enough expectation of good prose that it keeps you on your toes.
I won’t delve any deeper into the issue. There’s a bitter divide between the two camps and I think it is enough to acknowledge that divide, briefly explain my preference, and move on. Last night’s reading was wonderful because the larger umbrella of queer made “slam” versus “traditional”* irrelevant. We were a roomful of writers, each doing our thing in a safe space. I cannot overstate the importance of safe spaces for writers. If we could craft a series of weekly non-competitive open mics for queer writers in Austin it’d be a real boon to the writing community, which is currently (in my opinion) in atrophy unless you participate in slam events. A corollary weekly writers’ group is another idea — I used to belong to a small poetry group when I lived in Dallas, and if nothing else it trained me to write every day. Also there was a lot of free booze. We held our meetings in a bar, true to form.
Last night’s reading also reinforced my conviction that writing is an art form that requires complete immersion and dedication, potentially to the exclusion of conventional concepts of success or wealth or stability. (At dinner after the reading, my little group excitedly drew parallels between face tattoos and artistic integrity. I’m not sure how that argument holds up the morning after.)
Though not as dramatic as a face tattoo, when I left my job in publishing and entered grad school I did make myself a promise: I would not under any circumstances return to publishing. A risky move, as it’s the only industry I’ve consistently worked in that pays a living wage, and publishing experience comprises the entirety of my CV. But I’m sticking to it, and what’s more, I’ve alloted myself two solid years post-grad during which I will beg, borrow, and steal in order to keep writing the priority**. Minimum wage job? Sure! Part-time bookstore gig? Bring it. Cramped, cheap apartment ruled with an iron fist by a paranoid landlady? I’ll take it! Commitment to the cause is now.
Part and parcel to this type of commitment, as it turns out, is reading your work aloud. It’s too easy to tuck those manuscripts away and forget about them until the night you drink too much at dinner and paw frantically through your sock drawer looking for a poem you wrote that your dinner guests just have to hear. A monthly or weekly reading date, however, brings all that chicken scratch to the light of day. It reminds you why you do what you do. Why you lay awake at night obsessing over the last two lines of a poem written six years ago, and why you spend hours at the office (also known as the cafe down the street) on a brilliantly sunny Saturday in March hunting and pecking out an essay about the writing/reading process that only a handful of people will ever see.*** A handful is better than none, and handfuls lead to other handfuls, and eventually you are feeding a whole crowd, not just on the blogosphere but in public spaces, and aloud. And aloud is so crucial when technology and circumstance conspire to force us physically further apart. We may be more connected, but we are exponentially more alone. Standing in front of two dozen or more blinking eyes and reading lines off of a shaking piece of paper is real, and it is scary. Confronting that reality and that fear propels. Keeps you honest. Keeps you working.
* There is nothing conventional or conservative about poetry. Whether performed in a concert hall or scribbled silently in the dead of night, good poetry — good writing, period — has revolutionary potential.
** I’ll probably end up with an adjunct teaching position, which is basically the same thing as begging, borrowing, and stealing.
*** Also because you should be writing the first chapter of your master’s thesis, but why do that when you can do this instead?
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