Quite a spirited conversation going on on my facebook page, which began with a poet’s tale of a conversation with a musician friend, bitching about small audiences. (redacted) was of the opinion that it’s valid to read for an audience of one or two and, if I understood him correctly, he gave two
Poetry was still poetry, and nobody called the stewardess a bitch
reasons. First, because you can have a more direct, intimate connection with the audience and second, because it’s all about your work. If your poem is good, you should feel comfortable reading it in front of a mirror.
They way I see it, if I’m already there, I’m going to read, even if the audience is small, and I’m going to do it sincerely and to the best of my ability, because why in the world not? But I’d much prefer a larger crowd and I’m not buying the intimate experience thing. Everybody who can hear you is getting the exact same experience. How they interpret it is pretty much up to them.
But, of course, being a spirited thread, the discussion pretty quickly branched off into a discussion of how poetry is different from other art forms and why so much of it is so bad. One person said that poetry is the only art form which has more practitioners than admirers. I don’t know if that’s literally true, but judging from some of the poetry readings I’ve been to, it’s not far off. That person’s point was that poetry, now that the need to have rhyme and meter has come to seem as quaint and outdated as the need for wearing a jacket and tie on a plane or using Robert’s Rules of Order in a meeting, is something anybody who can write can write.
It works at poetry readings. You could get up on stage with a page out of your diary or your weekly to do list, read it out loud, and it will get the same polite applause and lack of critique as everything else that’s presented.
I don’t know. It could be I’m missing something, and people have more to say than I’m understanding – it’s possible- I’m a reasonably intelligent guy, but not terribly sensitive or deep – in fact, not really very poetic, in that sense. But here are my 3 rules for good poetry:
1. It should rhyme
2. It should have meter
3. It should mean something
I’m ready to waive the 1st two if the poem is good, because I know I’m swimming against the current anyway, but not number 3. It really, really has to mean something. I like it even better when I can understand what that is.
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