Reading For The Birds
Reflections on a Poetry Reading
My wife, a constant source of support and sanity in my writing pursuits and life in general, encouraged me to write about the experience of my second featured poetry reading. The first, somehow, was six months ago in late July ‘23, and I read before the admirable Joann Renee Boswell. The following reading event took place on December 1st, and I was honored to read alongside my gracious friend and poet-extraordinaire William Erickson at Birdhouse Books. When the moment came we sat side-by-side on stools in the basement space, tucked in one corner with biographies of figures like Benjamin Franklin and John Lennon and Henry Kissinger behind us. The lights were dim and a small crowd awaited our poems.
In my first attempt to write about that evening, all I put down were documentarian notes of things that literally happened. Purely factual. This time I want to get to the root of it.
I was definitely scared, not sure what to expect. A week or so before the event, Will and I walked around downtown asking proprietors of local businesses if we could give them some of our flyers or tape them to their windows. Most everyone we talked to was happy to oblige. Cafés, pizzerias, and galleries were among the places that helped us get the word out about our reading. We were only doing this with seven days, maybe less, to go. Even so, I think I did hope for more people. Although I’m not sure precisely what I was anticipating. But the crowd was great. We knew most everyone there, save a couple of new faces. Did they see the flyers? It almost doesn’t matter. Walking with Will around town in the cold and sun, just chatting, was a reassuring thing. I needed it to prepare for the reading; I needed it in general. What they never tell you about poetry is all the life it requires.
Successful flyer-distribution or not, I sat on my stool that night as ready as possible. Lucas, good friend and co-owner of the bookstore, introduced us and I insisted that Will read first. We had decided months earlier that we would read in the round — he read a poem, then I read one in response, and so on.
Above: one version of the flyers we handed out.
Having Will beside me and hearing him read was such a saving grace. How could I describe his poetry? Imagine surrealism like you’ve never encountered before, images and vignettes that want for nothing. That’s hardly scratching the surface. But it wasn’t just an honor to hear excellent writing up close and personal. The camaraderie was comforting and my nerves faded. We talked and joked between poems. I remember my wife telling me later, “you compliment each other so well.” Another friend told us, “the banter between you guys is really something.” And that’s the easiest way to say how I felt about the whole thing, as simple as it is. Really something. We read, passing the hot potato poems, for nearly an hour and a half.
At the end when we were mingling with friends, a shy stranger bought my old chapbook (Half a Martyr, 2021) and quietly asked for an autograph. I sort of thought my poetry was dead, or that that chapbook was dead, or that I ought to have given up already. It’s an odd feeling, too, because even as my poems grow from fledglings to adults and back to eggs again in that strange cyclical way I despair — maybe I’m not cut out for this. But I alighted from my stool that night and talked to poets I admire and they said such kind things, and a bashful stranger bought my book, and Will joked “next time I book a reading I’m going to tell them I won’t read unless DC’s reading, too,” and I get this warmth in the pit of my stomach, a sort of bounce in my heart, one that I felt in childhood, I think, before I started losing myself to doubts and self-hatred that can only be inherited. What they never tell you about life is all the poetry it requires.
I think it’s worth it to keep trying. That’s what this reading did for me. I know I need to. A handful of people caring is more than worth it.
To close this out, I’d like to share a poem that I read at Birdhouse. My sincerest thanks to Lucas and Sarah, friends and keepers of the nest; my eternal gratitude to Will, to everyone that came out to the event to support the two of us, and most especially to my beloved wife without whom I would not even bother. Holy Creature Patron saint of garbage, backyard prisoner, drinker of still water, lumbering mass with wicked jaw; you died curled up against the side yard fence — untouched, labored breathing until there was none. Animal Control unlatched the back gate while I was checking books out at the library. In my dream of that mission gloved hands raised you and held you, mirror image of Madonna and Child, and your lungs did not function but in one final act you were comforted, taken care of. It is likely they burned you. Hot until even your crooked teeth were gone. This is not martyrdom. Nothing so selfless or sacrificing. Yet it is holy and sacred and I missed it. In eulogy you are the creature that ambled by strangely in the daylight and frightened the cat. In myth you are the quiet hermit who walked this earth on aching paw displaced, wandering, dying. It is the grace of it that makes me miss you.
I loved this piece <3