Things I've Learned From Doing 1000 Poetry Readings
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Way back in the day when I first started using Twitter, I used to follow a comedian who I completely don’t remember but he had this thing where he was working on doing 300 comedy performances. He was brand new and would document his journey of breaking into the New York comedy scene 120 characters at a time. I was blown away back in 2008, 300 shows? Holy shit. The only performances I had known was playing in a series of shitty punk bands at VFWs, churches, and of course White Trash Juliard, our guitarist’s back house where we all learned to play music and would bribe unwitting friends into listening to our horrible songs in exchange for weed and beer. I had even had one of the bands names tattooed on my forearm the day before the band broke up (WE WERE GOING TO MAKE IT DUDE) but that is for a whole ‘notha essay man. But really what I’m trying to say is that I was always enthralled with the work ethic of comedians.
Looking back now though it’s interesting how many twists and turns this poet life has given me. I had stumbled into the realm of poesy by accident and out of sheer desperation for a quick buck. I had always written poems but when I was in high school they were “lyrics” and were just my personal musings in the dozens of marbled composition notebooks that flooded my room or to woo girls I liked. I was and still am primarily a prose writer but I had gone to AWP in Chicago (a big establishment writers conference) in 2011 with the community college I would eventually drop out of and had encountered loads of magazines. One of them was Gigantic Sequins, a mag based out of Philadelphia and through Twitter I had learned they were hosting a “story slam” for stories and prose poems at the legendary Stonewall Inn in Manhattan. The winner got $50 and publication. I went out there the first time I had ever performed poetry and won and it was horrifying but also a whole new alien experience that just lit up every atom in my body. I was dating a girl (who hated poetry and hated me doing poetry even more. Poor girl) and her little sister had a boyfriend who gave me a flyer for an open mic at a vegan bakery shop and the rest is history.
In ten years I have performed well over a thousand times all over the country from book stores, comedy clubs, punk basements, Bluegrass festivals, festivals where no one showed up, colleges, dive bars, protests, back porches, parks, marinas, coffee shops, office buildings, pool halls in rural Missouri, trap houses and reading poems in bed to your mom. I used to write down all the venues I performed at in the back of my author copies of my chapbooks as a record but I sold all those. Damn.
So I figured I’d send ya’ll a little email this morning about what I’ve learned from doing so many poetry readings.
How to lose money but look really fucking cool while doing it.
Email over. Thanks. Lmao. Nah, here we go.
Most Poets Suck At Performing So You Have a Leg Up
I’m just going to come out and say it: most poets suck at performing. I have a controversial opinion that if you don’t wish to get better at performing your poetry live then you best not do it. This isn’t some Bukowskian “don’t try” sentiment but so many poets don’t give a thought to their stage presence and just read from their books as if they were reading to their imaginary friend on the couch. No eye contact. No engagement. Nothing. They just drone on in a monotone voice with the only effect on the audience being a sympathy for Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple and the call for mass suicide. If you don’t intend in seeing the art in the act of performance and letting your words really sing you’re just doing a great disservice to your own work. Let the damn things live on the page and that’s that. So many poets out there hurt their own work by just being horrible. Now we all start somewhere and I’m not jabbing at folks who are learning their way (I’ll get to that later) but if you don’t put a slight bit of effort into this thing then just don’t do it.
There’s a reason I stopped calling my events poetry readings and instead call them poetry shows. The damned poets have done it to themselves by being boring and falling into the wide chasm of mediocrity. We live in an era of streaming services, smart phones, meme culture that would make even the most boisterous shock jock of the days of old cringe and you want to just read your work aloud monotone?
Be personal. Show eye contact. No matter which way you want to slice it if you are in front of an audience you are giving a performance. Make it as such. Find ways to be captivating, deliver your poems with intention, make those lines sing so you can resonate with the audience.
The Audience Doesn’t Owe You Anything, You Owe Them A Show
Too many folks have this belief because they have a lot of followers, or their book came out on some shiny rich kid press or that their parents bought them some degree that they are owed the attention of the audience. That is not how this works. The folks who come out to see you perform whether by hook or by crook could be anywhere in the world but instead they have chosen to sit in front of you and give you their time. They could be watching Hulu, or scrolling on their phones, or masturbating on the couch while scrolling on their phones and watching Hulu but instead they are here.
Learn to treasure that. Respect your audience. Try to award their attendance by giving them a damn show. Make them feel something. Make them laugh. Make them leave the event being like wow I’m glad I spent my time there rather than I would have rather watched a family member die in a burn unit. It is the base level of respect of the performer to acknowledge the good fortune they have that there is an audience of any size or concentration sitting before them and realizing that their role is to now impact them.
One time I was reading at a festival in North Jersey and they didn’t promote the poetry stage. If you have ever done festivals you will soon learn that usually the poetry stage is in a back corner somewhere hidden out of view where they keep the mad ones away from any of the other activities. Only one crumbled computer paper flyer written in sharpie hung to a post advertising there was a poetry event. I was heartbroken but a Ukrainian woman was there with her husband and she was so excited to show him American poetry for the first time. It was right there in that moment that I realized that even two people coming to see you is a gift so I gave them all I had.
Sometimes You Have To Fight For Them Or It’s Never the Audience, It’s Always You
Now let me begin by saying there are freak occurrences you will inevitably discover the more times you get on stage and there are some train wrecks that happen without a rhyme or reason. One time I was performing in St Louis and I had to host the show too (surprisedpikachu.jpg) when one of the dudes before me somehow deeply offended the young collegiate audience and this led to the entire crowd walking out. Or when I was touring through Kansas City one time performing in this speakeasy in a basement that had a whole Red Light/ Green Light system (so dope) and this dude who I love has a habit of fucking with the audience. I’ve seen him insult entire rooms full of people but that night he pulled a decorative axe off the wall and drunkenly began to once again insult the audience. A young portion of the crowd ran out the back door scowling “this is the worst poetry slam ever” Or sometimes a woman in Houston will offer you LSD and it is rude to say no to a new friend offering a gift. Then when you get on stage that night it’s like Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and you call the girls back home to say prayers to the pantheon of different gods they praise to save you but you still bomb.
But most times the fault in most situations relies solely with the performer. Some audiences are primed and ready and a good host (read my post about hosting shows) should have their audience ready for you but other times you have to fight for ‘em. Bar shows are notorious for being the most difficult albeit the most rewarding if you can break through. It’s naturally a noisy place filled with booze and distractions and most times the people aren’t there to hear you read poems about the moon. But it is the job of the performer to break through the barrage of distraction and connect. To lock eyes with the patrons and hit them right in the souls with the ancient divinity of poesy.
I have been fortunate that doing this as often as I do and as long as I have that the crowds are relatively easy most spots but it wasn’t always that way. I grew up performing at dive bars and host three of my most popular events at dive bars and there’s a dance to it. In the beginning I’ve had to stand on stools and charge the audience performing my poems in the faces of these beer drinking saints, I’ve climbed atop the bar to be the tallest thing in the room and sang blue collar bar songs right into their red sun burned faces.
It’s up to you how the show goes. I know when I get up there I have the attitude that you’re going to listen to me and that’s that.
Don’t Be A Prima-donna Or A Scum Bag; People Notice
The last thing you want is to be known as an asshole. This isn’t Warp Tour, this isn’t the Comedy Cellar, this is a poetry show and almost every single person who is involved in curating, hosting, performing and publishing are doing it as a labor of love. Most poetry hosts are doing the best they can with very little resources. There’s not a lot of money in doing poetry (there’s a few bucks in being a poet tho, but that’s for another time) so you have to understand that everyone else from the host to the open miker to the audience are all just trying despite whatever obstacles the world has laid at their feet.
Don’t fight with the host. Show up on time or early. Don’t be the guy who leaves right after this set. Just because you are headlining a show it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a decent person. I hear drama that happens and it always blows my mind. I have performed all over the country more than a thousand times and I have never fought with a poetry host. Why do it? Elitism and arrogance are so 20th century dude. Just be a person. Immerse yourself in community. See that you are part of this moment at this thing and soak it all in. Be a good audience member. Thinking you’re better than other people at a poetry reading is like saying you have the biggest dick at a little league game: it doesn’t matter and it’s highly inappropriate. Check yourself.
The Old Poets Are Dead Be Yourself
You are not Charles Bukowski.
You are not Charles Bukowski.
You are not Charles Bukowski.
One more time for the people in the back:
You are not Charles Bukowski.
Performance Is A Skill Like Anything Else: Practice, Practice, Practice
I’ll tell you this straight up that it isn’t easy. A good performer will make it look easy but that is someone who has ironed it all out and that’s the magic about it. In the beginning and probably for the first several years of me getting up on stage and doing those poem things I was horrible. I didn’t know what to do or how to sound and I would get super sweaty and shaky, my mouth would get so dry and I felt like I was having a heart attack. But there are levels to this I have found and the more and more you get on stage you progress forward like a video game.
In the beginning you shake and you just keep your eyes glued to your paper, or book, or phone screen.
Then you start glancing at the crowd, then you start being able to actually look at the them, then you could look em dead in the eye. Soon the more time you get on stage the pangs of worry and anxiety begin to dissipate. You start being able to talk to them, to make jokes, to tell stories, to take space and own it. I don’t get nervous to get on stage anymore but I do feel the stomach dropping tremor of excitement. Now when I get in front of an audience I am all animal and engine. I’m fired up. I’m so present and there that I can feel everything. It takes time.
It is literally like anything else and that it is a skill that takes practice and effort. The more you swing, the easier it is to hit the ball.
Embrace The Bomb
A noble thing about comedians is that they intrinsically understand by matter of their art form that performance is a skill that needs to be worked out. They will get up and have a rough set but that is the way of the world and they learn from that. We all have bad shows sometimes and it could be from a myriad of factors. I hate to quote Joe Reagan but he once said “bombing on stage is like sucking a thousand dicks in front of your mother” and it’s true. In 2014, I bombed so bad on stage that no one clapped and usually poets are cushioned from gallows of shame by the standard applause break after the poem. That’s why you’ll hear 90 percent of them say thank you after reading their poem to beckon that instead of rolling the dice. I ended up quitting for over a year because I was so embarrassed.
But bad sets happen. The more you do shows the higher chance you will have to have rough or awkward performances. I remember back in 2017 I made a post on Facebook that started a hell storm when I said that all poets should record their performances on their phones so they can listen back to it. People were mad but I stand by it. Recording your sets are a great way to listen to how you came off and to dissect later on.
Anyway, I thank you for reading this post and I’ll talk to you again on Thursday. If you want to follow me on social media I’m most active on Instagram @damianrucci and if you’re in New Jersey make sure you check out Poemageddeon Week. Tonight, tomorrow, Wednesday and Saturday I have touring poets from aground the country coming through the New Jersey Poetry Renaissance.
Heyo
Yes. This is all very true. I'd rather serious af and have people find me hilarious than not live the words I've written. Thanks for the thirst to stand up after a freak accident put me on my proverbial arse