Open Mic Poets: I owe you an apology

I write these posts in a flurry--which is good--I've finally made peace with imperfection; and so I sometimes have second thoughts on what I've written.

Point being, on June 14, 2009 I posted "Open Mic Etiquette {Note to Poets}" and commented on an increasing tendency to deliver long introductions to poems, and that this tendency was most common to poets of the open mic.

What do I even mean by "open mic poets"? Well. Poets who love to read their poems aloud, who enjoy the company of other poets at open mics, mostly held in coffee houses or bars. By and large, open mic poets, as I here define them, don't submit their work to literary journals, or do so only when the journal is tied to one of the open mic venues they frequent.

In New York City, for instance, Evie Ivey's Green Pavilion reading in Brooklyn, a monthly reading series "under the chandeliers" at a funky coffee shop with a large backroom, recently published a slick, well-executed anthology of Green Pavilion poets--poets whose work, whose names, don't appear in publications with a greater circulation.

Okay, definition over. Thing is, when I advised open mic poets against explaining their poems prior to reading them--let the work stand on its own, I suggested--I wasn't exclusively addressing open mic-ers.

In fact, one of the most annoying readings I had attended was of Poetry poets, Poetry being one of the superstar journals of this field. The reading was held at Housing Works Bookstore and featured four poets. The first two poets to read explained their work at length, revealed various resentments held against editors who'd rejected their work, or considered their time at the mic to be a first draft of a memoir. (Much autobiography.)

The final two poets simply read their poems. The final two poets were Philip Nikolayev and Mary Jo Bang. Nikolayev, who is bi-lingual (Russian and English), placed his poem in a context. I don't remember the specifics, just that he offered one or two sentences of introduction--he was born and originally educated in Russia and sometimes listeners are eager to know if his work is a translation or his own.

Mary Jo Bang, also calmly laconic in her notes to the audience, told us a poem she was about to read followed a particular form. And then she read her poem. The emphasis was on the work, not what led up to her writing it.

All of this is to simply urge all poets to trust their poetry to do the work. To trust the listeners to figure it out. Each listener may take away a slightly different "it," one feeling sorrow in a poem, another a tender wit. We can't really control other people's reactions, we can only try. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't why some poets write poetry. And if so, good for them. Just don't explain away your impulse.

Open Mic Etiquette {Note to Poets}

Dear Poets,

When you read your work at an open mic, it is not necessary to explain the poem. It is not necessary to share with the audience the city it was written in or weather conditions outside the window of your garrett while you were writing. Were you happy or sad or full of knowledge and/or wisdom from just having completed reading Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? Not really necessary. A brief mention could be interesting but that's all. Perhaps you used an unusual word in your poem, such as, say, abducent nerve.

Well, okay. I grant it might be of value to inform your now slavering public that an abducent nerve is:

A small motor nerve that has one task: to supply a muscle called the lateral rectus muscle that moves the eye outward.

{Challenge poem: Use "abducent nerve" in a crown of sonnets.}

But even that is really truly unnecessary. Perhaps your poem references Paris, not the Paris of croissant and Yves Montand but Paris, Texas. Maybe maybe maybe you can mention that before reading.

But really. Truly. HERE'S MY POINT, FOLKS, AND PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A BLOG, NOT AN OPEN MIC READING. Let the poem, a compilation of words, space and time, do its own talking. Let the audience understand what it understands. If there is a doctor in the house, ha ha, even she might miss abducent nerve, because the thrust of the poem is about bravery or love or redemption. But the doctor will have listened and heard something new and brave.

You can't control what your audience hears. You can't control how your audience interprets. All you can do is read your poem. And it is so very tiresome and insulting to be told:

"This is a poem about love," by an eager poet. I, for one, want to make the discovery on my own. And if there is any merit to the poem, I will. Without the poet's help. Without a five-minute lecture.

Of course if a poet goes on and on before reading his or her poem because he or she is oblivious to the audience, or narcissistic, well, what's to be done but to leave the reading or avoid that poet in the future. I go to poetry readings to encounter poems, not poets.