Poetry Readings: New Rules

Disclaimer: The following rant was primarily inspired by a couple of wannabes at Boston's slam venue at The Cantab who completely ruined the open mike this past Wednesday after I'd come back from months of being away. Still, I think we can all learn from or agree with my observations. I try to attack lack of etiquette rather than lack of quality (though if you read below, you'll see that they tend to go hand in hand). Also, I've been found guilty of nearly all of the grievances I state.

Rule One: The Stool Is To Put Your Notes On. Nothing Else.

Anyone who sits on a stool to read poetry is being lazy and will give a lazy reading. Work for your audience, dammit. This is true for slam venues and any other venue. If you can stand and walk, you can stand in one place for ten to thirty minutes and at least act like you're not bored to be reading. Therefore, do so. Also, those who violate rule one, will tend to violate...

Rule Two: For Open Mics, No More Than Three Minutes. Ever.

Even if the open mic time isn't listed. Yeah, yeah, I know. That rule's just asking to be broken. Particularly by venue hosts when their favorites and friends go up (yeah, I said it!), but also by anyone who is just so good that you want to hear them again. Great synergy between a poet and the audience should allow for leniency, especially if the person is a feature or has featured.

But.

If you're an unknown at, say, a song and poetry open mic, and when it's your turn you say "I have a 3 song CD coming out--here's all three songs": Warning. You have outlived your welcome with me already.

And if an open mic has gone on for too long, and the host politely requests that the readers keep it to one long poem or two short ones, and you go up and read three to six poems anyway ... well, fuck you.

And if you're someone who did a great feature once, and you go up and do a five-7 minute reading because your popularity grants you a kind of immunity, you should know better and save it for the next feature. So, to be fair to everyone, fuck you too.

Last Wednesday at The Cantab, a yahoo went up, took the stool (surprise), and in a kick-back position (another sign that it's okay for audience members to use the bathroom) proceeded to read a poem that was, in reality, a ten thousand word short story. Okay, I'm guessing at the word count, but only because he was cut off after ten minutes, so it never really ended. In my mind, it's still continuing. Not that anyone complained about not reaching the end. And it was boring. It had the word "soul" not only in the title but in nearly every sentence. I swear it had "soul" in one sentence three times, as subject, predicate, and direct object.

I used to think former Slammaster Michael Brown was overdoing it for not only enforcing the three minute rule but also having Godfather-like one-on-ones with offenders afterwards (yeah, me too). That night with the soul man, I prayed for Mr. Brown's return. If he had been there, he would have ripped the guy's arms off.

Or maybe the legs. You know, to give him an excuse to use the stool.

If Michael Brown wasn't vindicated while I was away, he was that night. He should have been there at least for the maiming that Simone Beaubien felt too uncomfortable to do, being so new to the slammaster position.

Rule Three: Stay Fresh

More a rule for the open mic peeps than for features. I used to violate Rule Two a bit if I thought one of my poems wasn't interesting enough. I figured I'd rather go long than be boring or say the same old poem. I realized that for me, I should stick to creating new stuff rather than make an appearance at a reading every week with the false hope that I would be picked as a feature. If I have stuff, I'll go up. If not, I can be content with just listening to the poets who do have stuff. If the poetry by others isn't good, why am I going there? Just to hear people admire me? That's unhealthy (I'll get to that another time).

Rule Four: Do A Set List and Rehearse It

To all comrades at the Boston Poetry Massacre: Imagine how many more great poems we could have heard from everyone if we all stopped asking everyone how much time we had left. Why don't more poets know ahead of time how much time they have?

(Hmm. Starting to feel like I'm writing a Seinfeld bit from the eighties.)

I'm pretty anal on this. I seem to be one of only a handful to actually create a list of what I'm going to read. I appreciate everyone who makes an effort to get to my readings. I'm nowhere near prolific enough to always have 10-15 new poems for every reading, but I always keep lists to see what I've done before and try to keep track of what certain audiences may have heard too many times.

Most of all, I rehearse to see if I go over time. It stops me from constantly asking what I should do next. I might not end in the exact time I end in rehearsal, but at least I do my best to respect the time limit.

Now, if only I could stop the rambling introductions. (Remember, these rules are the ones I learned the hard way and re-learn every once in a while.)

I'll write more rules as I think of them.