last week, my friend Lindsey and I attended a “Poetry Sharing” event at the Arboretum Barnes & Noble. I heard about it through a local poetry e-newsletter I get every month.
I showed up early and ran into Jonathan Rice, editor of Iodine and manager of the B&N, and then killed time reading Ann Campanella’s new book of poems – a nice collection of not-sappy poems about her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease. I was probably 20 pages deep into it when I realized that it was 7:45 and the poetry thing started at 7:20, so I walked around and found a circle of folks over in the food section of all places. Beth Cagle Burt was reading some of her work and showing her photography as an opening to the poetry sharing. I knew her from the reading I did earlier in the year there. I saw Lindsey when I walked up so we got two chairs and sat in the back of the circle.
OK, here’s where I get more honest. At first glance, it looked like a senior citizens meeting. I think everyone but maybe 4 people, including Lindsey and me, were retired and probably had grandchildren. I almost felt embarrassed for inviting Lindsey and I was sure that she was going to bolt before it became time for her to read her poem. (Lindsey just graduated from Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program. Can you imagine how different this was compared to her two+ years in the New York poetry scene?!) She gave me a look and said she didn’t want to read because she was afraid what she brought was too risk-ay for this bunch. I promised her it wasn’t, and held my breath that we would make it through. I was so eager to get some good hard criticism on my work, and I was hoping the “older is wiser” saying would fit this group.
For the most part, though, the group’s poems were hugely basic and some were blatantly first drafts. I felt many were too sentimental, too narrative, too boring. But everyone was soo sweet, and I couldn’t help feel good just for being around poetic people. And there were some decent poems to note. One guy read a prose poem that he had just workshopped at a writing conference in Spartanburg. I couldn’t hear him well, and he didn’t bring enough copies, so it was hard to get a full feel for it but I was just thankful for him offering something different. And another younger fella (probably in his 30s) – who we later found out was a high school English teacher – read a beautiful poem about a boxer. He said he had just spent the last year in Panama working on a boxer’s biography.
When it came time for me to read, I wasn’t nervous at all. I think some people thought I had never read in public – one old man asked me how it felt to read in front of a group – and I just said how happy I was to do that, because it had been 3 years since my last workshop. And that’s the truth – I wanted criticism so badly. I wanted to bounce off ideas about what works or doesn’t work, get down to the nerdy details of each line with people. But everyone there was too nice. Most of the comments were “such fine imagery” or if it was a narrative, people would fly off on their own tangents about a similar life experience they had had. In some ways, I thought the poetry sharing was more of a memory sharing. Poetry was serving its purpose here as a medium that connected the personal with another – which is good, but the same could have been acheived at an open mic. But who knows, maybe they’re more open when there are not any newcomers in the group.
However, a couple people did give me feedback that helped. Richard Allen Taylor, who I greatly admire for his community involvement in the Charlotte poetry scene (I see him at just about every event I’ve attended), made some comments about the sound of the words in my poem. And the guy who read the prose poem (I wish I could remember his name!) gave me a very good tip about taking out one word – a word I had taken out in an earlier draft but put back in later. Both of these comments happened outside of the circle, though. I felt like we were the rebels of the group, giving criticism on the side.
Lindsey did end up reading her poem – which was not overt in the least and was well received by everyone. Her poem showed very fine craft, and was one of the few I heard that night that actually said something, rather than just documenting an event with pretty words. And to me, those are the poems that matter most.
Afterward, we stood outside and recapped everything much like I’m doing here. I was surprised to hear that Lindsey was thankful that I brought her. Since she’s moved back to Charlotte, she hadn’t found anything like that. Even though it was a little ammateur, it was good for her.
As we were talking, I just kind of said in passing “We should start a young poets group.” And her eyes lit up, “YEAH WE SHOULD!” and so we discussed it briefly and…I think we’re going to do it. Or at least do something small and see if it gets bigger. We’re going to meet sometime in the next week or so to set out more firm details and then I’ll start publicizing it. So, maybe I’ll get my Charlotte workshop afterall!
