Open mic

Last night we went a reception at the arts council and to a poetry/fiction reading at the local coffee house afterwards. I won second in our arts council’s poetry contest (whoo hoo!--$100 prize! probably the most I’ll ever make from a poem), and the winners were invited to read, so Chris and the kids and I all went. We almost always are the only ones with kids at these things, but Laura and Will behave pretty well at public events for a good while anyhow, and I don’t know how else in the world for them to learn what I’d like them to about culture if I don’t take them along. And we always bring animal crackers or something for distractions.

Will did pretty well last night, except that every time I had to get up--to go get my award, to read my poem--he would suddenly start asking the entire room “Where’s Mommy going?” This despite my holding him on my lap telling him for the five minutes before where I was going…. Laura of course was fine. She’s an old nine year old, and seems practically grown--she loves art receptions, and listens to the readings pretty closely. Plus Fran met us there, and she thinks Fran walks on water.

Laura listens so carefully because she writes poetry too, and some pretty good stuff, actually. She hasn’t learned to revise yet, but it took me years to do that and I was a grown woman before I did (and I’m not sure I’m done yet either), so I’m not too worried about that just yet. One poetry reading I was supposed to do at a high school literary magazine open mic, I was sick and had basically no voice. Laura stood up on a chair so everybody could see her and read my poem for me. And she did a great job--better than a lot of the high school students. Our campus coffeehouse is coming up in October, and she’s going to read one of her own poems that night. I asked her if she was nervous, and she said, nah, she wouldn’t really know anybody there anyhow. She’s got a point.

I thought I’d be all smart at my reading last night and memorize my poem, which is pretty short anyhow. On the drive in to work the past two days, then, I’ve been memorizing it, and I have it down pretty well. I actually went ahead and learned two, since I thought they might give us a chance to read a second poem too. But being the big believer in backup plans that I am, I also printed out a copy to bring with me--and then left it home when I swapped my book bag out for the diaper bag. That was a little scarier, let me tell you. I got a word wrong in the last line, but fortunately the line worked well enough without it, and I can’t imagine anybody knew the difference but me. Chris and Fran both said it was fine…. but whew.

And the second poem didn’t matter anyhow. Those dang fiction people--they always get more time at readings. The short story authors were supposed to read excerpts from their work. They didn’t. My poor little poem took maybe two minutes to read, and we went through probably five poets in 20 minutes. Then 45 minutes to hear two stories… they were starting the third, and it was bedtime for the kids. By this time Will was climbing under the table anyhow. A long night, but a fun one.