Since September, I’ve been performing slam poetry at a small, quaint place called The Film Bar. It’s exactly what you might imagine it to be — a film bar: a place, which shows classic indie film and has a fully-operating bar serving treats and your favorite drink, too.
For the longest time, I’ve written poetry in a place of solace and kept my words for the latter half to myself. Granted, I have published two books of poetry, but this experience of speaking my poetry aloud to a live audience feels different to me. Once a month, I go to the Ghost Poetry Show, sometimes to speak and other times to listen — to absorb, to contemplate the words others have pressed to the page and resuscitated upon speaking them aloud.
It’s an intimate, personal experience to say the least. I don’t think any other form of art would quite allow or even grant the level of intimacy allowed within poetry. I never knew I desired a sense of community. I suppose I believed in the myth for the longest time that most artists write alone in the dark, but I guess that’s the magic of it all.
In community, we begin and find our words alone before we share them as we are cast in spotlight. Last Thursday, I performed at the Ghost Poetry Show and I won third place. I think at the end of the day the notoriety or awards don’t really matter as much as they are greatly appreciated.
I’ve always preferred the words after when a poet or an audience member comes up to me and says, “Your words really spoke to me.”
Because more or less, they are saying your words found me when I needed them. I found a home in them and they found a home in me.
And I think that’s the greatest reward at the end of the day.
The Muse of Idle Stars 