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Friday, July 18, 2008

People at the reading were nice to me

But I was a little uncomfortable the whole time and no one was responding when I read my poems. I was the first reader. I started to think, wait, maybe these people only like language-type poems. My new poems are basically just sentences about myself, so I thought they were hating me. Buck Downs was there and he has a very good globe around him. A gentlewoman named Dawn did too. There were about 20 people in the very cafe-ish cafe. If I could do it again I would put all my funnier poems up front to break the ice. So that's what I learned. I didn't even read some of my favorite stuff because maybe I made the set list wrong.

Wade was a great host and we traded chapbooks, my Butler for his own Snitch Culture from that huge Dusie thing. A handsome volume. And the other readers were good. I thought Kyle Dargan wrote really cool stuff and it wasn't at all language-y, so I misread all of DC. Madonna turned 50 and then "I thought she was pretty, for her age" went one of them. That wasn't it; it was better than that. There was a guy who played guitar and sang and he seemed very comfortable and really nailed it a lot. He played a rockin' solo that made me say, "Woo!" Reb Livingston said she doesn't get to read in DC very much except in her house. Then she said, "Don't get me wrong, it's a nice house." I laughed but no one else did more or less.

There was something else I was going to say but I can't remember now and I gotta go meet a man about a lunch.

4 comments:

Michael Kimball said...

My knee and Dr. Stephen Bell apologize for us not being able to attend. I'm glad the people were nice to you.

Adam R said...

I'm going to sue your doctor.

ryan call said...

i apologize also for not being able to attend
instead i am sweating a lot in TN

i am really happy that you got to read in dc

reb is hilarious

Josh Maday said...

i need to take a trip to Baltimore/DC. it's a hotbed. good work, adam, et al.

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