Poetry: Selecting Poems for a Reading

Before I started giving my own poetry readings, I didn’t think much about the selection process for what to read. I would sometimes go to Open Mic Night at the Gypsy, but I didn’t really think about what I was reading. I had a 10 minute timeslot, which was usually enough time for 2-3 poems, so I just read my most recent poems.

A few months ago, I had my first full-length poetry reading. I had about 25 poems I felt were worthy of public scrutiny, but I thought reading them all would take too much time. I didn’t want the last few poems turning into a chore for me or my audience. “Thanks for staying 30 minutes later than your excitement. Have a swell night!” I wondered if I should focus on older or newer poems, poems surrounding a unifying theme, poems that had a certain length. What I came up with was a list of 15 poems of varying lengths and age. They were mostly observational poems because I’d titled the event “Portraits.” I think I did pretty well, but I remember how the non-observational poem dead-panned.

Tonight I’m reading at an event called Hope & Healing, so obviously I need to attend to those themes. My set is scheduled for 20 minutes, so that limits how many poems I can read. Of my total poetry collection, I have about 10 poems that are appropriate for the topic. I’ve settled on 5. I carefully ordered them to flow in a certain way. But I’ll take the others with me. You never know when you’ll get extra time or will talk through your prepared work too quickly. I don’t expect a rock concert like encore demand, but I’ll have “one more song” ready to go.

Based on my experience, here are few pointers for selecting poems for a reading:

1. Select the right number for the allotted reading time. Know how long it takes you to read your work. I sometimes read faster when I’m nervous, so I must allow for that.

2. Take extra poems. Sometimes your allotted time changes. Sometimes you feel the audience might react well to something not on your agenda.

3. A unifying theme isn’t necessary, but if there is a unifying them, stick to it.

4. Break up the long poems with short ones. It can be exhausting to both poet and audience to read epic after epic after epic.

5. If you plan to talk between poems, know what you want to say. You don’t need a script, but it may help to take some notes. One poem I’m reading tonight is “Missing Lucy.” I plan to talk about how writing that grief poem helped me heal after my grandma died.

6. Don’t read the same poems every time. If you’re on a multi-city tour, maybe the same reading list can be used ad nauseum, but if you read at x cafe on Saturday and y cafe in the same town the following Friday, mix it up. Audience members who attend both readings will expect fresh material.

7. Don’t put too much pressure on reading your “best” work. Obviously, you do want to share the poems you feel are good, but it can be fun to throw in a rough draft or a humorous poem in with a serious batch.

Any other thoughts on preparing for poetry readings?

Event Announcment: Night of Hope & Healing

I’m very excited to announce that I am the feature poet at tomorrow’s Night of Hope and Healing at Emmaus Road Church. The event will have music by local artists Chris McLeod, Leah Hugon, and David Christopher, poetry by yours truly, and an open mic session for people who want to share poems, songs, and stories about what they’ve overcome.

As for my part, I’ll be reading a mix of old and new poems. I’d love to see you there.

Night of Hope & Healing
Sunday, March 27, 2011
7pm
Emmaus Road Church
1609 S Boston Ave
Suite 300
Tulsa, OK 74119

Correction: I had the time as 8pm, but it starts at 7pm.

Submissions: What Goes Where?

“No simultaneous submissions”

As a young poet who has only recently started submitting for publication, this phrase intimidates me. It isn’t that I lack confidence in my writing. I actually feel quite good about many poems, but the supply isn’t infinite. I send a few to a journal then must wait 2-3 months for them to review them before either doing the “I got published!” dance or submitting them elsewhere.

One negative in this system is that it may take me a while to get work published. If I have a poem rejected by 5 journals, say, that’s nearly a year gone by. I hope my fragile ego and lofty ambitions can handle this.

Another negative is they rarely tell writers why their work was rejected, which potentially limits the learning experience from each rejection. Was my content or form inappropriate for the targeted journal? Did they like it but didn’t think it fit the current issue? Was it just bad?

Though my questions usually remain unanswered, I try gaining from each rejection. I review the content and form to determine which journal I should target next. I send the work back through my revision process, even if what I recently submitted was the 10th draft.

It also gives me the opportunity to become more organized about my submission process. I try to always have active submissions–a few poems off to x magazine, a few others off to y. As I write more and, hopefully, improve my writing, I’ll try to have a few to x, y, z, and on and on.

Despite the difficult and time consuming process, I believe publication will happen for me. Part of me knows that if it were easy, I wouldn’t do it. So I will stay the course, if you will, and earn my place in the annals of literary history. Until then, the What Goes Where? game continues.

Hey Mister, Would Ya Roll Me One of Those?

On Saturday I received a couple coupons and other fun stuff from Sante Fe Tobacco Company, makers of Natural American Spirit cigarettes, so today I’m going to tell you why I roll my own cigarettes. What does that have to do with writing, you may well ask. Everything. Smoking has long been a part of literary tradition.

So why do I roll my own when pre-packed cigarettes are quite readily available?

Hand-rolled cigarettes are less expensive. My savings is not as great as it once was because prices on American Spirit leaf tobacco recently shot up 30% in Tulsa (something about a distribution center closing and increased transport costs), but a pouch of tobacco with 50 papers is still less expensive than 2 packs of 20 cigarettes (40 total). My overall savings is about 20%.

The flavor is MUCH better, and since I’m a snob, that’s a big deal. Most brands use significantly higher quality product for loose tobacco than for pre-packed cigarettes. American Spirit, the brand I smoke, is one of the few exceptions. They use high-quality tobacco in both applications; quality is one of their selling points, along with use of natural and organic tobacco. But even in this case the loose tobacco has larger leaves, less chance of being dry upon arrival, and doesn’t have to compete with the foam filter. Once you’ve had unfiltered cigarettes, pre-packed or hand-rolled, you’ll realize how much flavor hindrance the filter causes.

They’re better for the environment. So this may be an argument built on conjecture and bullshit, but hear me out. Loose tobacco is more likely to be additive-free. Having just tobacco instead of tobacco plus a chemistry lab must be better for the environment (and less bad for the smoker). Also, when you consider that billions of discarded cigarette filters litter our street, a biodegradable option (it’s only paper and tobacco) is better. We should still try to extinguish our smokes in ash trays when available, though.

The primary, and most poetic, reason is process. I find a certain romance in deliberate processes. In writing, I want a satisfactory finished product, of course, but I cherish each step that gets me there: first draft, second draft, peer review, third draft,…fiftieth draft, etc. I hope this concept shows in my poem, “Communion,” which uses rolling and smoking a cigarette as a metaphor for the writing process.

Well, I’m going to step outside and indulge now. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.