“Wow, that’s a long line. Is it a concert or something?” your Uber driver asks. You chuckle to yourself, “No, it’s a poetry event!” You get out of the car, sigh at the sight of the huge line, and take your place at the back of it. No need to worry about feeling impatient and bored though, you can just pass the time by admiring all the hipsters around you. As you finally make your way to the entrance, you smile when a man asks if you’re under or over 21. “Under,” but at least it was questioned. You think back to earlier this summer, when your Red Robin waiter handed you a kid’s menu, and your friend an adult one. Must be the glasses this time- You should wear them more often. The man then marks each of your hands with black X’s. You think how sad it is that you have to go through a metal detector in order to hear some poetry.
You walk in, immediately welcomed by the fumes of creativity and beer. On stage, you see a single wooden chair with a spotlight illuminating it. A microphone just in front. You find your spot, settling for the place with the least amount of heads disrupting your view. As long as you can hear, you think to yourself. The lights dim, a woman takes the stage, and the night begins!
You immediately wish you could pull out your phone and jot down phrases (all of them being so significant and relevant), but no. You don’t want to miss anything- the words fly out too fast and just fast enough. Though the guy in front of you videotaping the performance keeps swaying his phone exactly into your view, you don’t mind and consider the fact that he will probably go home and rewatch the video again and again once in the comfort of his own home.
The power in Sarah Kay’s voice appears to contradict her floral dress and angelic presence. Her words wrap the room in a hug. Andrea Gibson’s words flow out in perfect, potent harmony with Ludovico Einaudi’s melodies. Maybe a tad dramatic, but it works and makes it that much harder not to cry. As the night progresses, the poems take on heavier and heavier subjects: terrorism, addiction, suicide, love. Though emotions are so complex, and we often feel things that are no longer describable, the poets manage to come pretty close to doing so. They speak of lamplights considering riverbeds, jumping puddles before finding the ocean, dandelions losing their minds in the wind, every wound being an echo, a world the size of a crayon box, and a life as rich as soil. These are the people who have no secrets and only stories. You think they could read their grocery lists and still manage to sound profound. And so, everyone’s eyes and ears find themselves fixated on the poet, as if unable to draw away from the sun in the room. This is a different sort of crowd: People in it are prone to feeling excessively. They hug each other, snap in encouragement, and scream "Thank you!” with all their might at the stage. What goes into your ear is probably not the same thing that goes into that of the person next to you. Everyone is so lost in a world of their own private sorrows and joys, but no matter! Everyone is there together, trying to understand.
For a moment, all seems clear- the words, your head, the world, and your place in it. How nice it must feel to be up on that stage and have all these open hearts attentively waiting to hear your thoughts: To be unconditionally acknowledged and already accepted for what you’ll do and say next. Just before the closing poems, Sarah Kay says something along the lines of: “Thank you all for coming. It takes just as much energy to listen as it does to speak.” This is it. The secret glue that holds all things together: Generosity. Generosity with your thoughts, your time, and your energy.
