“See the man with the stage fright
just standin’ up there to give it all his might”
— The Band, “Stage Fright”
“Try to look up at the audience when you read,” my friend Eliot tells me. “And try to emphasize and round out your vowels.”
We had just finished our second joint reading in about a month, at a small Mexican restaurant in New Brunswick. It had gone fairly well — the audience seemed to like the poems and, as always, Eliot rocked the house.
It was only my second reading before a live audience (I’m not counting the handful of early-1980s open readings and school events I had attended) and it was clear that I was fighting sheer, unmitigated terror. I was like the man in The Band song, with sweating brow and dry mouth, unwilling to raise my eyes from my poems. Making eye contact seemed the worst thing I could do.
But Eliot offered encouragement. He told me to give the work a chance, allow it to be heard. The poems were good, so the reading would be All I needed to do was relax.
Easier said than done, but I considered the evening a victory. That was probably five years ago and, having now read publicly dozens of times (including eight as the feature poet), I understand what he was saying.
Let the work do the work. That’s the advice I would give now. If you are confident in your poems, then let that confidence shine through your reading. Let the poems do the work.
I’m up at Fairleigh Dickinson for the week, participating in the first of three residencies that are part of the MFA program in creative writing. As part of this week’s residency, first-year students are expected to participate in a reading (it’s tradition). I had seen it on the schedule a week or two ago and I have been looking forward to it, but others — including the other poetry student, a woman who writes wonderful poems that harken backward in time to the Romantic period (but without the rhyme) — appear far less excited by the prospect of getting up in front of the crowd and letting it all hang out.
I was a little surprised, but shouldn’t be. They are just feeling as I did not too long ago — completely engaged in the art, but not in the performance, focused on the solitary creative impulse and either not ready for or not realizing the importance of taking that art out into the world and connecting directy with the audience.
The connection is what makes readings so important, I think. I asked Mark Doty about this before he read at my South Brunswick series in May and he told me he values the opportunity to interact. Reading is a way to give back to the community of readers who have supported his work and a way to gauge the effectiveness of the work.
It gives us a chance to hear the poems and see the reactions in the eyes of the audience, to hear them laugh or see them shake their heads and talk with them after the reading and answer questions or thank them for their kind words or what have you.
My advise to all poets is to get out there and read. If you’re in central New Jersey, come to the South Brunswick Library on the third Sunday of the month (September through May) and join the open reading after our feature. Or go to the Barron Arts Center in Woodbridge, the Somerset County Library in Somerville or the Carriage House reading series in Fanwood or the River Reads series in Red Bank.
To quote that paragon of corporate personhood, Nike: “Just do it.”
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 