the calculus of attendance
attending poetry readings. to attend or not attend, that is always the question it seems. i dove into the local poetry scene when i moved back to portland six years ago. there was a period of four or five years where i estimate that i attended on average about fifty readings a year, and that's not including open mics. i deliberately went to as many different readings as i could. basically, if i heard about it, i would try to go. that turned into a a very fascinating & uncomfortable sociological experiment. i wanted to hear what was being written & read. i had the belief, and i would still like to believe, that my own writing might benefit from being exposed to all sorts of different styles of poetry, both writing poetry & reading it. i am often aware of & frustrated with the habits & patterns with the way i write. i always long to expand my limited ideas about what could be a poem. unfortunately, i burned out, again. i did the same thing back in the nineties (rick j, ubiquitous in at least TWO DECADES!) and i'm annoyed with myself for doing it again. there's a u2 song about trying to wrap your arms around the world, i was trying to wrap my arms around portland poetry. so for the past year i've been attending fewer & fewer events and trying to focus on my own writing. the entire time i've been here i have struggled with the calculus of deciding whether to attend a reading or not, which is especially challenging because there are so many readings and i am open to attending quite a few of them. there were readings i wanted to attend because someone from out of town was reading that i was curious about and some i was curious about the reading series itself. sometimes i felt like i needed to show up because a friend was reading. sometimes other people believed i was obligated to attend because of their perception about my relationship with that person or their belief that i was a member of tribe i didn't feel a part of, which felt really weird. i felt hurt that most people never came to any of my readings or events and i realized that i presumed that because i went to their reading or attended the events they hosted, that i expected them to come to mine, or at least check me out once. instead, i found that most people didn't even respond to my invitations, never mind come to the reading. i think that was presumptuous of me and so i decided to retire the quid pro quo attitude. i decided that if i would only attend events if i had the time & energy & really wanted to attend. i've had all sorts of weirdnesses around this. someone i had never met with got upset about me not attending a reading they were doing even though i said i had to work that day & the reading was in another city and i don't have a car. they had posted a note on my fb wall demanding to know where i was. i've also had the lovely experience of being invited to attend a reading and actually going and sitting alone at a table in the middle of a crowded and not a single person saying hello a few people even glaring at me like "what the f*ck are you doing here?" the irony is that it's always been people who don't come to my readings or events who complain or get weird about me not going to their event. i can kind of sympathize on an emotional level because i have felt hurt when i would do a reading and notice how many people didn't come and how many people didn't even bother to respond to the fb invitation. i know what it feels like stand up there and survey the audience and realize not a single person was there to hear me. i stopped doing readings because i realized that no one is interested in what i have to share and i don't have enough actual friends, as opposed to virtual friends, for it to be worthwhile. but i don't feel like it's fair for people who don't ever come to anything i do to demand my attendance or complain if i don't come to their event. i am only going to what i feel like going to. ironically, attending an event is for me impersonal, it's not about friendship, it's about art (and also insomnia, stress, & depression). i know for many people it's probably the opposite. i get that & that's just not how i roll.
attending poetry readings. to attend or not attend, that is always the question it seems. i dove into the local poetry scene when i moved back to portland six years ago. there was a period of four or five years where i estimate that i attended on average about fifty readings a year, and that's not including open mics. i deliberately went to as many different readings as i could. basically, if i heard about it, i would try to go. that turned into a a very fascinating & uncomfortable sociological experiment. i wanted to hear what was being written & read. i had the belief, and i would still like to believe, that my own writing might benefit from being exposed to all sorts of different styles of poetry, both writing poetry & reading it. i am often aware of & frustrated with the habits & patterns with the way i write. i always long to expand my limited ideas about what could be a poem. unfortunately, i burned out, again. i did the same thing back in the nineties (rick j, ubiquitous in at least TWO DECADES!) and i'm annoyed with myself for doing it again. there's a u2 song about trying to wrap your arms around the world, i was trying to wrap my arms around portland poetry. so for the past year i've been attending fewer & fewer events and trying to focus on my own writing. the entire time i've been here i have struggled with the calculus of deciding whether to attend a reading or not, which is especially challenging because there are so many readings and i am open to attending quite a few of them. there were readings i wanted to attend because someone from out of town was reading that i was curious about and some i was curious about the reading series itself. sometimes i felt like i needed to show up because a friend was reading. sometimes other people believed i was obligated to attend because of their perception about my relationship with that person or their belief that i was a member of tribe i didn't feel a part of, which felt really weird. i felt hurt that most people never came to any of my readings or events and i realized that i presumed that because i went to their reading or attended the events they hosted, that i expected them to come to mine, or at least check me out once. instead, i found that most people didn't even respond to my invitations, never mind come to the reading. i think that was presumptuous of me and so i decided to retire the quid pro quo attitude. i decided that if i would only attend events if i had the time & energy & really wanted to attend. i've had all sorts of weirdnesses around this. someone i had never met with got upset about me not attending a reading they were doing even though i said i had to work that day & the reading was in another city and i don't have a car. they had posted a note on my fb wall demanding to know where i was. i've also had the lovely experience of being invited to attend a reading and actually going and sitting alone at a table in the middle of a crowded and not a single person saying hello a few people even glaring at me like "what the f*ck are you doing here?" the irony is that it's always been people who don't come to my readings or events who complain or get weird about me not going to their event. i can kind of sympathize on an emotional level because i have felt hurt when i would do a reading and notice how many people didn't come and how many people didn't even bother to respond to the fb invitation. i know what it feels like stand up there and survey the audience and realize not a single person was there to hear me. i stopped doing readings because i realized that no one is interested in what i have to share and i don't have enough actual friends, as opposed to virtual friends, for it to be worthwhile. but i don't feel like it's fair for people who don't ever come to anything i do to demand my attendance or complain if i don't come to their event. i am only going to what i feel like going to. ironically, attending an event is for me impersonal, it's not about friendship, it's about art (and also insomnia, stress, & depression). i know for many people it's probably the opposite. i get that & that's just not how i roll.
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