Hey Happy Tuesday, so I was going to drop the sequel to last week’s stack Woe to the Vanquished but I figured I would write about something that I know a good deal about and that’s poetry open mikes or in ye olden days called open reads. These are events that may or may not have featured performers but they do have a sign up sheet where anyone can sign up and get a shot. From coast to coast across America there are thousands of open mic events with their own respective scenes and cultures. The open mic is as American as apple pie and traces its lineage back to the basket houses of early 60’s Greenwich Village and launched the folk movement out of it. The open mic is many things and in some ways is perhaps the only place where equality and democracy exist as anything but an abstract thought— at the open mic everyone who signs up gets their time. If you sign your name, you get whatever time is offered and it doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned veteran or a newbie just popping by (unless you have a really shitty host who plays games with the list) and it’s this simplicity and honesty that makes the open mic a viable path for the poet looking to build a name, find community, or build up their performance chops.
Now before I get into it, I need to just state the obvious lest I incur the wrath of the Facebook Writer Group AARP attack goons— I’m going to presume that you are doing the work on the writing thing and reading and working on your craft. The performance is its own art but we’re mixing it together now. I’m sorry. Ya gotta be good on both ends. It’s hard out here I’m telling you. I remember I went with my community college to AWP in Chicago way back in 2011 and the legendary poet Taylor Mali was hosting a reading Page Vs Stage where he had three slam poets reading with three literary ‘page’ poets. Since then whether by inertia, natural process, or some other form of cultural witchcraft their has been a concerted move to walk the middle. To be a poet who writes for the page but can hit the poems live like a mother fucking riot. I stand by the notion that most writing happens in solitude though as I’ll get into it, pulling a poem out in front of a live audience can help too.
A few months ago I wrote a stack “Ten Poetry Open Mic Commandments that was geared to the hosts and organizers. This one is for the open mic poets looking for a way.
Let Me Tell You What the Open Mic Is and Isn’t
In another life time, I was in a shitty punk band in Hazlet New Jersey and before I got the bands name tattooed on my arm (the day before we broke up) we were seventeen and had no idea what the fuck an open mic was. It was a show. So we swarmed the coffee shop with all of our hooligan friends who showed up right before we went on and left right as we got done with our five minutes and were complete assholes and the host who was also an asshole kicked us out of the show. A local madman who wore a safety vest and smelled like a urinal mint flipped over a table and bellowed “you cant stop rock n’ roll man” and everything went all sideways but that’s a story for another time. We were being fools. Don’t be like us.
The open mic is not a show, maybe part of the night is with features and headliners or whatever but the open mic portion of the evening is not a show. It’s not a place for you to promote your ‘appearance’, it’s not a place to bring in any of the showboating that comes from a booked performance. The open mic is a place to work. To bring the words from your pages or phones and give them breath. That every time you step foot in front of that microphone your delivery grows stronger and with enough work you can build a performance talent that can put your poetry in motion baby. The open mic is a place to try new things. To break out that weird poem that is a goof or to try a new style or even to shake out some of that new shit.
The open mic is the hangout man. The features are the show. Once that’s done than the wild west and all curation is over. An open mic can go on for eternity like an acid trip gone awry or it can be a night of unprecedented gold. Because anyone can sign up— that means you never know who will walk through the door. Who is passing through the area and found the mic. It’s the great uncertainty that makes it all electric. You never know what may occur or what poet may be working on a new poem. When you watch one of your poet comrades break out a killer new poem— it’s everything!
You Gotta Know The Rules of The Game
Most open mics are first come, first serve and the list is sequential. So the earlier you can show up the better spot you can get. Many a poet have started out at the bottom of open mic lists going on at dive bars at 11:30 pm fighting with the crowd and these are the conditions you may be faced with. But such is the game. It might be advisable to sign your name up in the middle or towards the end but I would suggest moving it all over. Each slot on the list is like a note in some chaotic orchestra and your placement in conjunction with the poets before or after you can change everything. It’s an energy game and the hardest spot on the whole damn list is number one. But you get to set the tone for the night and break the audience back in.
Every mic has parameters for time but for some reason many poetry open mics still operate under the two pieces paradigm instead of five minutes. The problem with that is a poem can be a haiku or fucking Howl, it’s silly but you are tied to the given rules. Try not to go over time. Don’t waste your entire set explaining your word choice or some esoteric bullshit. Commentary or a story to prologue a piece is cool if it meshes but don’t explain it unless you really have to.
Have your shit in order. Whether you are reading from dead trees, a phone or going off the dome just be prepared so when your name is called you can walk up to the microphone like a champion and get to business. Every time a poet fumbles through their papers or mindlessly scrolls their phone— the ghost of Walt Whitman gets kicked in the balls.
Maybe You Shouldn’t Bring Your Girlfriend (or boyfriend or whatever)
Okay I know I’m going to get some flack for this and I said it on a podcast once and I caught some grief but I genuinely mean it. If you’re new to this, you should show up alone or with someone else jumping into the trenches. Getting up in front of people and performing anything is an exercise in dedication, experience, and will. The first time you get up in front of a crowd you’re probably going to be a nervous mess and not even interact with the crowd. Baby poets are known to just read as if they were reluctantly called up to the front of the classroom to read a report on Fracking. I’m telling you. No one shows up and is automatically amazing. This is a work. This is a thing. Do you really want to bring out your normie friends as they watch you fight for your life up there? Now I will say this, if the host is decent, poets have a hard time fully bombing because of the given clap after the poem. But just because poets have a safety net that comics don’t, doesn’t mean you’re not going to fuck up or not connect.
It’s the way it is. There are few things worse than bombing in-front of your partner or friend and that long awkward drive home when all you want to do is jump out of the vehicle and they’e feeding you shit “I think you did good”
Nah. Step forward. Allow yourself the space and time to grow before stunting on your friends and partners.
Using Your Open Mic Spot to Build Your Poems
Comedians are workhorses and they’re always scribbling and then trying new things at and comedy is different because it is the one art form that requires an audience to exist. A call and response. So when they write something they have to bring it to a crowd to try it out. Poetry doesn’t have that requirement and I’d argue that most of the poems ever written have never been read aloud before a crowd. But I have been doing something for a year or two and that is bringing an unfinished poem to the open mic an seeing how it hits. Different nights I might try different arrangements just seeing what makes the poem more coherent and what hits the audience proper.
I think it’s an important thing to do and it helps you find out directly what the audience digs more. It opens up whole new worlds of possibilities and is now what I do often.
Opportunities and The Climb Upwards.
Poetry is a thing that’s not fully a performance art but is also a standalone art form with its own presses and events and it’s in this unique way that a poet who is FANTASTIC on the page but a monotone momo in person can be booked and put in front of hundreds of people. That’s a thing and loads of magazines and presses have launch parties and other salon type events and the poets booked are based on purely literary esteem and that’s cool if you want to get put to sleep.
But as I said, you gotta do both now! Every time you get on the open mic, you are putting yourself in a position to be booked for featured performances and the better you get, the more likely you will be to get an offer. Everyone has a different trajectory and some poets may only do two or three open mics before they are booked but some it may take much longer. The construction worker who spent seven months on the open mic when he received his first feature you would have thought he won the lottery. It takes time and persistence and dedication but it’s within reach.
And also what makes any good open mic, a good open mic is its community. Everyone you see already there and hanging out stumbled in at one point or another as a new nervous face. Open mics thrive off new blood so hang out. 80 percent of wild opportunities seem to be born out of the hang after a mic when all the artistry is flowing out and everyone is kicking it. That’s why you don’t want to be the rock star who leaves right after their set. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. Be a member of the community, engage, support and be with it.
I just wanted to cover the 101s here. If you guys dig this then maybe I’ll start dropping more writings on the poetry game. Let me know. This Thursday I’m publishing a wild, wild story. Stay tuned.
If you dig the work I do and want to support me you can do so here and I’ll love you forever and every time you share Poets Like Us on the social medias the elitist poetry establishment gets a black eye.
so valuable always. Thanks.
Message received. So many of these words ring true.