About Open Mics

Here in the U.S., this is Labor Day weekend, many schools opened on the 3rd (before Labor Day this year) and, despite the heat and humidity where I live, there's just a hint of autumn in the air. The summer blog "reruns" have run their course. In this corner of Poetryland, readings begin to pick up again after the semi-lull of summer, and I thought a post about poetry readings might be interesting.

When I posted the above video here on the blog, a few years ago, I thought it was one of the funniest reading-related videos I’ve seen. If you’ve been to readings, especially where there are open mics, you’ve probably heard a wide range of reading styles. Revisiting the video got me to thinking about open mics and what makes a good open mic experience for both the readers and the audience members.

We’ve all been to poetry readings that include open mics. Sadly, some of these become agonizingly drawn-out events. Some time ago, I read in a venue in which the open readers after the feature were allowed to read as many poems as they liked.  I read for about 20 minutes; the open reading went on for more than two hours. Enough said!

Assuming that you read in opens or attend readings in which there are open mics, it occurred to me that letting people know what isn’t appealing might be a good way to approach the subject.

The goal, of course, isn’t to be negative but, rather, to point out things that sometimes occur at open readings—things that leave audience members wishing they’d left right after the feature.

Having directed the Carriage House Poetry Series for seventeen years, I can say with complete sincerity that being a series director isn't easy. We all hope to create venues in which poets and poetry lovers can share in a welcoming and non-judgmental environment. To do that effectively, readers (both featured and open) need guidelines, and it's helpful to know what doesn't work.

Accordingly, I invited five reading series directors (who are also distinguished poets) and asked them to make a few comments in answer to this question:

What can ruin an open mic poetry reading?

 With my thanks to the poets below, I hope you find the following comments helpful. 

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Bernadette McBride 
Director of the Farley’s Book Store Reading Series, New Hope, PA

If you are a poet who likes to read at open mics, a tip or two: realize you are not the featured poet—that status has been earned in some way and is given the bulk of time; remember that others want to read too and attendees have just listened to one or two featured readers—they're becoming “poetry-ed out” for the night.  Respect this. If you notice people shifting in their seats and rolling their eyes, sit down.  

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Deborah LaVeglia 
Director of Poetswednesday at Barron Arts Center, Woodbridge, NJ

• If it's too long
• If it's vulgar/inappropriate/sexist/racist
• When those reading in the open, don't come to the feature portion of the program. 

It's the host's responsibility to lay down the rules and make sure they are followed. However, even though you make an announcement, newcomers may not adhere to your rules/suggestions. It's difficult to cut a person off mid-poem. I try not to, but have had to do it once or twice. Usually, I approach the person afterward, privately, and explain things. That always works for me. 

I don't like when hosts make blanket statements about rude open readers at the beginning of an open. It turns me off. After all, everyone shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable because of one or two people. Everyone can work things out with a little bit of patience, direction, and kindness. It's a difficult position for the host. I am very grateful that it is rare at the BAC [Barron Arts Center]. 

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Diane Lockward
Founding Director of Girl Talk and The West Caldwell Poetry Festival, West Caldwell, NJ

1. If you haven't been there to hear the featured poet read, do not sign up to read in the Open.

2. While the featured poet is reading, please do not sit in the audience and work on your own poems.

3. Regardless of how many poems you are permitted to read, do not ever read more than two, each of modest length.

4. Do not approach the featured poet after the reading and suggest a book trade.

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Laura Boss
Co-director of the Montclair Library Reading Series 
and Co-director of the Poetry Weekend Intensive Retreats

Here's what not to say at opens when you are limited to one or two poems:

"Could I just read one more poem?"

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Sander Zulauf
Former director of the Great Swamp Poetry Series and former Director of the Distinguished American Poets Series and Bicentennial Poetry Readings at County College of Morris, Randolph, NJ

For starters, poet wannabes with more ego than poetry in them.  Those who read too long are definitely an open mic buzz kill. Everybody deserves a chance at the open, but in order for everybody to have a chance, the leaders of the reading should specify the number of poems or the time for each reader depending on how many have signed up.  And should warn the poets that they will be stopped if they cross the line.  Leaders have a responsibility as well as the participants.  I was once chastised while leading the open mic at the Gazebo in one Waterloo Village Dodge Festival by stopping a guy with his notebook who was reading a ten or twelve page hand-written Iliad when some young whip stood in my face and quoted Frost at me about "nobody should stop a song" or something, and I had to stand up to him by defending the rest of the people who wanted to read and who were being eaten alive and denied a time by the talentless quack.   People who write poems while the featured reader is reading and then stand up and read their tripe in the open.  I am no longer a fan of open mics—I believe they are gimmicks to build an audience for the featured poets, and they can quickly poison the poetry well. 

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Summer Rerun #8 – Music & Poetry

Originally Posted Saturday, September 4, 2010

“Music resembles poetry: in each are nameless graces…
 – Alexander Pope (“Essay on Criticism”)

      

Music and poetry have been linked for centuries; in fact, poetry predates written forms and was originally recited aloud or sung rather than read. Poetry, even free verse, has maintained a musical quality in rhythms, meters, rhymes, articulation, and phonetic timbre. In poetry, as in music, texture is often achieved through contrasting smooth lyrical sounds and staccato or discordant sounds; in poetry, alliteration and assonance, internal and external rhyme, imagery, and mood all add to a poem's “sonic texture.” 

Interestingly, while poetry is often inspired by music, music is also inspired by poetry.  One of the best examples is Stéphane Mallarmé's poem “L'Après-midi d'un Faune” (“The Afternoon of a Faun”), written in 1876. This poem inspired Debussy’s tone poem of the same title. Debussy completed the work in 1894; in 1912, it was choreographed by Nijinsky and premiered by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Chatelet, Paris (with Nijinsky as the Faun).  

Click Here to Read the Poem

Click Here for the Music

1. For this prompt, let’s use music to inspire a poem. 

2. Select a piece of music that you haven’t listened to in a long time (or music that you’ve never heard before). 

3. Before you listen to your music and begin to write, consider how other poets have used music to inspire their poems.

4. Now, relax and listen to the music you’ve chosen. 

5. How does the music speak to you? 

6. How do the tempo, rhythms, and meters of the music make you feel? 

7. What images does the music invoke? 

8. Does the music cause you to recall a particular time or experience? A person? 

9. Does the music create an atmosphere of discovery that you can translate into written language? 

10. What story emerges from the music? 

Remember, you needn’t write about the music but, rather, what the music suggests to you. 

Alternatively, you might try writing a poem about what music in general means to you; or you may write about a piece of music that has a special meaning for you. Sample opening phrases: 

• They were playing our song…
• I never hear that song without remembering... 
• But, then, I heard the music…
• Nothing but sound and… 
• Where the music was…

Another “musical” possibility for this prompt is to write new lyrics for an old song. Oh, and if you’re musically inclined, how about writing a poem and setting it to your own music?

Summer Rerun #7 – Memory's Toyshop

Originally  Posted Saturday, August 28, 2010

When I was little, there were no media-linked toys, iPods, laptops, or cell phones. For many children of my era, the toys we loved best were little green plastic army men, Hula-Hoops, Slinkies, Ginny and Barbie dolls, Play-Doh, and Mr. Potato Head (played with real potatoes). However, any toy, from any era, will be great for this prompt. 


First, think back to your childhood and recall a toy that was special to you. “Freewrite” about that toy for a few minutes. How is this toy the memory-trigger for a past experience and/or relationship? Write a poem about (1) the toy, (2) about a memory triggered by your recollection of the toy, or (3) about a person you associate with the toy. Alternatively, you might write about a toy that was special to your child or to a pet. You might enjoy writing a persona poem from the perspective of a toy. It's playtime!

Example:

Slinky

By Linda Radice

The kid in the commercial had straight stairs 

for the coil to work its way down. The three

story staircase in our house had landings that 

turned. My slinky required a nudge around 

corners, but guided close to the railing it went 

smoothly past Uncle Joe who came to visit 

great-grandma every Thursday afternoon, and 

slid by my grandfather in his gardening shoes at 

sun up. I could make it glide with my father’s run 

when the fire whistle called him to the station, and 

work it around my mother – the constant between

each floor stepping quickly, my brother on her hip, 

to check on my grandmother after her stroke.  

The staircase and the house around it are for sale,

     

the rest of the people who walked there are gone,

sixty years of footsteps that wore the wood smooth.

I perfected Slinky’s twisted descent long ago – the kid 

with the straight stairs has nothing on me.

Copyright © 2015 by Linda Radice. All Rights Reserved. 

From What We Can't Keep (Little Poodle Press, 2015).

Summer Rerun #6 – Color Your Poems

Originally Posted, Saturday, August 21, 2010

For your color poem:

Begin by taking a “color inventory” of your life. What colors do you like to live with? If you had to live with a single color what would it be? What is your favorite color? What colors do you associate with the best or worst times of your life? What colors do you associate with people, places, experiences? Following are ten possibilities for color poems:

1. Write a poem about a color without naming the color and without using one of its synonyms (for example, don’t use “crimson” in place of “red” or “azure” in place of “blue”).

2. What color is your life? Write a poem about your life’s color(s). 

3. Write about an experience using colors to set the “tone.”

4. Compare a relationship to a color.

5. Compare a person to a color. 

6. Compare your job (or creative work) to a color.

7. What is your life’s “rainbow?” 

8. Write a poem about a place (scene, landscape) and use colors to highlight descriptions and details.

9. Think about implied colors as in Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Wordsworth only mentions “golden” once, but the sense of “yellow” is strongly present throughout the poem. Try this in a poem of your  own. Click Here to Read Wordsworth's Poem

10. As an alternative to color, write a poem about something colorless. 

 

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Summer Rerun #5 – Summer Reverie

Reverie: absentminded dreaming while awake; 

a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts.

Originally Posted Saturday, August 14, 2010

For me, during these “dog days” of summer, reverie means sitting in my gazebo (with my Yorkie next to me) and being “pleasantly lost” in thought to the music of birds, crickets, and cicadas. Sometimes my “absentminded dreamings” become poems.

For your reverie poem: 

1. Take a walk, lie on the grass, lounge in your favorite lawn chair (or, if the outdoor weather isn’t cooperative, relax on a sofa or other comfortable place in your home). Any time is fine, but try doing this in the morning or evening.

2. Keep paper and a pen or pencil nearby. 

3. Simply unwind, free your mind of distractions, and let yourself daydream. 

4. Write down some of the things that come to you, and don’t try to organize your thoughts. 

5. Later in the day (or the next day), go back to the notes you took during your reverie and look for inspiration. Is there something there that you can develop into a poem? What did you daydream about? What did your reverie bring to mind? Instead of one poem, you might find material for several short poems or a sequence of short poems. Your reverie may take a traditional, experimental, or fantasy form (and it's not necessary to use the word “reverie” in your title.

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Summer Rerun #4 – Tickle Your Taste Buds with Guest Prompter Diane Lockward

Originally Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Note: This week’s summer rerun is a guest prompt by Diane Lockward.

  

From Diane:

I’m often asked why I write poems about food. My interest, of course, goes back to childhood. I was a fussy eater whose father insisted that every plate be cleaned. I became adept at surreptitiously getting rid of food I found disgusting. While I had no appetite for vegetables, I had a big sweet tooth. But the foods I loved—cake, cookies, candy, ice cream sundaes—were prohibited by my father who wanted me slender. My cravings only increased. On the sly I consumed entire jars of Marshmallow Fluff.

At some level, perhaps, I'd begun equating food with risk, danger, punishment, deprivation, desire, hunger.

I went to Sunday school and met Eve and learned about the garden, the snake, and the apple. I must have filed all of that away for future use. Fruit, temptation, capitulation, expulsion, abandonment.

I saw the film, Tom Jones, and was mesmerized by that famous eating scene in which Tom and a buxom woman he meets at an inn sit at opposite ends of a long table and proceed to rip apart chicken legs and stuff their faces with juicy grapes, all the while gazing at each other with seduction in their eyes. Food and sex. Of course! 

So for me food has all kinds of connotations. I don't think I'm unique in that. Consider, too, how many of our social rituals are connected to food. Special dishes for special occasions. Romantic dinners. Repasts. And memories. Aren't there certain foods that call up memories, good or bad? And think of the sensory appeal of food; every part of the body is somehow involved. Finally, food intrigues me for its rich metaphorical potential. For example, in my poem, “The First Artichoke,” the artichoke becomes emblematic of a family with its many layers, its heart at the center, a heart that’s fragile. 

I'd like to add that while the title of my second book, What Feeds Us, invites the conclusion that I am a “food poet,” in fact, that collection contains only nine poems that are overtly about food, and each one of those nine is really about something else. Look at my poem, ”Linguini”—is it really about pasta?

Linguini

It was always linguini between us. 

Linguini with white sauce, or 

red sauce, sauce with basil snatched

from the garden, oregano rubbed between 

our palms, a single bay leaf adrift amidst 

plum tomatoes. Linguini with meatballs, 

sausage, a side of brascioli. Like lovers 

trying positions, we enjoyed it every way 

we could—artichokes, mushrooms, little 

neck clams, mussels, and calamari—linguini 

twining and braiding us each to each.

Linguini knew of the kisses, the smooches,

the molti baci. It was never spaghetti

between us, not cappellini, nor farfalle,

vermicelli, pappardelle, fettucini, perciatelli, 

or even tagliarini. Linguini we stabbed, pitched, 

and twirled on forks, spun round and round 

on silver spoons. Long, smooth, and always 

al dente. In dark trattorias, we broke crusty panera, 

toasted each other—La dolce vita!—and sipped 

Amarone, wrapped ourselves in linguini, 

briskly boiled, lightly oiled, salted, and lavished 

with sauce. Bellissimo, paradisio, belle gente!

Linguini witnessed our slurping, pulling, and 

sucking, our unraveling and raveling, chins 

glistening, napkins tucked like bibs in collars,

linguini stuck to lips, hips, and bellies, cheeks 

flecked with formaggio—parmesan, romano, 

and shaved pecorino—strands of linguini flung 

around our necks like two fine silk scarves.

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Summer Rerun #3 – Journeys

Originally Posted July 31, 2010

It’s been said that we travel to lose ourselves, and that we travel to find ourselves. Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” What does “travel” mean to you in terms of wonder, discovery, and self-revelation? Has a journey in your life given you “new eyes?”

Write a poem in which you travel: the journey may be real, imagined, emotional, or spiritual. You may take an “overland trip” through description, attention to details, and sensory perceptions, or you may lead readers through your journey's surface terrain into the emotional, spiritual, or metaphorical landscape at its center.

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