Paul Tyler at the Plan 99 Series in April 2010 reading “Manitoba Maple”, a poem from his new book from Gaspereau Press, “A Short History of Forgetting“. (If this subject feels familiar, I mentioned this reading before.)
Readings can be nerve-wracking, whether you’ve done it a dozen times or hundreds, because the random element of who is in the room and the collective personality that arises in any given crowd that’s different from the sum of the parts.
It was sweet at this reading how the room was giving those small sub-vocals of enjoying. For a page-poetry crowd, it started to feel warm as a slam reading with finger-snaps of encouragement.
Did you see Rob Taylor’s list of signs of Reading Fail? Tyler dodged all those bullets including that one:
“Just six more,” they say, as if to reassure us.
Steven Heighton in “a few memos to myself” has lots of food for thought on the writing life, including the advice on balance — to not be overly earnest, nor to avoid earnestness. “Irony is effective only in balance with other modes and tropes. Much current discourse renders itself void and dead by the ceaseless, indiscriminate use of irony.” and lastly
ix Stand on the side of artifice—of worked and earned, elaborated form. Life gives us enough of life. We approach art for something different: more distilled, catalyzed, charged, and signifying.
The next Plan 99 reading will be with Hagios poets launching their new books — Jennifer Londry and Sandra Ridley on May 29th.