IRL
The Joys of In-Person Poetry Readings
A funky used bookstore. A local coffee shop. The living room of a brownstone with people on the floor and homemade biscuits in the next room. A little bar that has jazz musicians ready to start after the poets are done. An art studio. Another small bar with cozy tables and a little stage (that from the outside looks like it’s not even open.) Another bar with neon pinball decorations. A small local theater. A brewery. These are just a few of the places I have read or have attended a reading in the past year.
Like most writers since the pandemic, I have consumed and participated in most of my poetry readings online, but there’s something about a live reading that cannot be replicated online. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the availability and scope that online events provide, the exposure and access to so many writers that would be geographically impossible to achieve otherwise. It’s why I love to curate A Hundred Pitchers of Honey and why I’m a regular listener to many other series.
But a real live reading, even to just a handful of people, creates a different kind of magic. You can see and hear people respond in the audience. You can connect eye to eye with someone while reading and/or listening. You can appreciate the unplanned laughter or appreciation from a reader’s remarks and demeanor. But one of my favorite parts of being a part of live readings is meeting poets/curators I have never met IRL and being exposed to their work.
For example, as an audience member, I recently attended my first Neon Nights reading in Chicago, curated by Benjamin Niespodziany, a celebration of Johannes Goransson’s translation of Aase Berg’s Aase’s Death from Black Ocean featuring Johannes and Black Ocean editor Carrie Olivia Adams (and curator of Poetry & Biscuits), Nathan Hoks, Paul Cunningham, and Hedgie Choi. I had heard Hedgie’s work before and love her book award-winning book Salvage, and I have long admired the work of Johannes and Carrie and have attended and read for Carrie’s series in her lovely home But I hadn’t heard Johannes or Carrie read from their work before, nor was I familiar with the other readers. The evening was full of surprises - Ben’s intros which include fictional erasure bios, Nathan fashioning antlers from sticks onto his glasses in honor of reading from Aase' Berg’s With Deer, Hedgie turning in a circle each time she ended a poem. Everyone was at ease.
As a reader, I had the pleasure of sharing a feature with Mary Ardery and Snezana Zabic at the Hungry Brain Series (hosted by Chicago poetry icons Simone Muench and Kenyatta Rogers). Not only did I enjoy hearing their work live, I was introduced to two poets whose work I had only briefly encountered and have spent the last couple of weeks really digging into their collections. Mary’s Level Watch is based on her time as a wilderness guide for a women’s addiction program but also deeply rooted in the personal and the natural. Its narrative lyric is tinged with humor, vulnerability, and gritty practicality/realism that make it a compelling read. Snezana’s book Concrete is more Beautiful Disfigured and Stained is rooted in Chicago and Yugoslavia, both in image and tone, but also provides a touch of the surreal that comes from the author’s attempt to catalog life in a collapsing world. In her afterward, she explains the nature of the work as doom & gloom vs. fun & games and the lyric vs. the experiment. A completely different, yet just as satisfying reading experience. Two completely different poets who I may not have not known if not for a live reading.
So three cheers for all the curators and venues, both IRL and online, that continue to broaden my horizons for what poems can be, and for providing a place where words matter.
Upcoming Live Readings for Unrivered;
February 1 at Water Street Writers in Batavia, IL
February 6 at Book Drop Reading Series, Milwaukee, WI
February 14 at Highland Park Poetry, Highland Park, IL