On a night in Missoula, plenty of people are going to concerts and parties. They are all going to listen to EDM loudly or go to an alternative band they, truthfully, have not heard of but have merely glanced at their songs on Spotify. This will all go on for quite a while and it’s fun and it keeps the music people scene spinning. But what about poetry readings?
At these readings, there are no remixes of Drake or The Weeknd, there are no ill-tuned amps, and there is usually ample lighting. Or is there? I’m not entirely sure about poetry readings and the goings-on at them, so I decided I would take a look around and see what I could find.
I started off by coming to the show a little early; it starts at 7 o'clock, so I decided to come at 6:50 p.m. There a few people already here and there are a few extremely determined to sit in the front row. There is an eclectic mix of people who come to poetry readings. Here in this room is a couple who look like high schoolers doing a very good job at looking like college students who are both cool and college-y, but still cool enough to go to poetry readings. There is also this strong squared-shouldered squared-jaw my-aged guy here as well.
I know it’s rude to try and assume the kind of people who attend poetry readings, but people who wear Seattle Mariner snapbacks and keep their head low and try seeming distant from the mix are giving off the same “new to this” vibe that I am. One of the smarter poetic intellectual girls turns around from the mixed crowd of people and sees Seattle Mariner Snapback dude. She gives him a really overtly cheery “heeeeyyyyy!” (the number of vowels approximately used), and he seems to lighten up.
As more people pile in, a younger guy in a jean jacket quickly moves into a row and keeps darting down at his watch. He occasionally taps his foot with a speed I think will break the floorboards. He turns around at one point and asks the girls behind them how long the reading will go. The short haired girl who had been disturbed from her doodling on a large blue legal pad gave an assuring answer of “about 50 minutes” which calmed him down. He still acts nervous being here because his row is empty and he wants to look like the kind of person who is having fun in their 50 allotted minutes of poetry reading with some of their closest friends.
His demeanor changes when a girl he knows sits next to him to talk. He’s not hunched over or vigorously tapping at the floorboards now, he’s looking like he’s been in the room for hours and has conquered the overall tone of the reading. Of course, no reading would be complete without its own mix of hipsters. These young, very bright types all seem observant and excited. The room fills with hip, young people who are doing their darnedest at being social, and being intertwined with the elderly.
It’s a weird portrait of modern society when a girl with buzzed short hair and rockabilly glasses is chatting away while a wrinkly bearded man who is wearing glasses thick enough to be considered bullet proof sits just a short distance away. They all seem to know each other somehow. They probably have all taken classes together and this is just a big get together for all of them and somehow I’ve wandered in on an inside joke. They all seem happy and having fun but we are all hushed to a silence when a woman approaches a podium at the front of the room and begins to tell us about tonight’s event. That’s when I realize how hot the room has become. Not only is it hot but it’s a dry heat. Even with windows cracked, people in the audience are all sweltering in it. A young girl, who is not the poet, comes to the podium next to talk about the poet. She’s listing off all of her accomplishments and accolades about how much more deeply complex the poet is than we here might have realized and how really it’s an honor and privilege to have her presence grace our sweaty, intellectual, hipster presence.
Now, it is the poet’s turn. She moves near the podium and gives a cheery hello to all of us in the audience. She begins to read from her collected first published poems and I begin to realize, while sitting in that comfy red chair in the back of the sweltering hot hall, this place is a lot like a church We’ve all now heard the praises of poetry and we have all come from different backgrounds, all for the common need of wanting to listen to the spoken words that are best and simplest ways to deliver poetry to us. Poetry here is trying to find the meaning of life, and these words spoken tonight are the candle in the dark.
These first few poems, I find, have something she is reaching at, but it just isn't within the grasp of the natural world’s understanding. Using every clever word trick, she is trying to convey love or hate or greed or peace. As she continues, the poems vary in length and structure. Some poems are long and filled with twisting word choices. The short poems bounce from word to word. When the poems end, we all clap and not because the poems have ended, but because they have changed something in us.
From the outside, poetry readings seem boring. Someone gets up, talks, and we all just listen. But I’d say come, sit down, and you might just learn something.
