Just for the record, I don’t consider this one of my best poems. It has its flaws. But I wrote it as an exercise in a workshop. The assignment was to write a poem in which coffee and potato chips were mentioned within the two minute time limit. Most people, in these kinds of exercises, meet the requirements of the exercise in the first couple of lines. I just started writing to see where I might go and sought the best place to slip potato chips and coffee in without making it look like that’s what I was doing. I managed to pull it off right at the two minute mark.

At any rate, here it is. “Potato Chips And Coffee”:

I don’t know who this poet is. This is the first video I’ve seen from him, but it definitely made me subscribe to him to see what else he comes up with. I’d like to offer this analysis of why the poem hits me the way it does:

First, it’s a well-written lyric. It isn’t sentimental pablum, which rules out about 80% of the poetry videos that I’ve seen. I mean, we’re not talking about some 14-year-old girl here talking about flowers in a field, or some old guy sitting in a library reading William Wordsworth. Just read the poem:

My voice is like moss upon a cliff
When I wish it,
Or like hammer tongs on an alarm bell
When I rai+se it.
In every day I let it sit
Like evaporating fog upon the pavement,
Or for pleas,
It turns into a barefoot schoolboy.

I hate when men mistake my voice for a woman's.

What I don't have:
A songbird in morning,
A woman in yearning,
The dust of all the empty quarters of California.

I wish I had a voice,
Like the warm waters of a bath
That sup at a lady's skin.
Or a voice like waves of molten chocolate,
Strong and sweet and all-coating.

I wear brogues and drawls like suits,
Fitting for an impression I wish to set,
The contexts sets my pitch and pace,
Like the weather decides how to trim your sails.

But I think in my true voice:
A voice that wears boots,
All rustle of leather and topsoil dancing with the wind.
That's my true voice, but nobody ever hears it.

Taken from the “More Info” space on this video’s YouTube page, it is every bit as good as any other poem you’ll find in one of today’s literary journals. I mean, it won’t win the Bollingen Prize, but this poem could have been written by an MFA graduate at Vermont College. It’s about on the same level as other contemporary lyrical poem in terms of subject matter, style, tone, and craft.

If I had read this poem in a journal it would have just been another poem. I’d have liked it, but not as much. I wouldn’t have hated it. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with it. But I’d have noted that it was well crafted and moved on to the next poem. But the fact that I first encountered this poem as a video means that I get to hear it in the voice of the poet himself before being subjected to my own rendering without the aid of the poet’s voice to cast inflection upon it. That’s very important.

When I attend open mic poetry readings I am always conscious of delivery. My own as well as the other people at the reading. When another poet gets up to read his or her poems, I look at body language, listen for voice inflection, and try to get a sense of the poet’s own interpretation of their verse based on their oral communication skills. And when I read, I try to provide that for my audience as well. Sometimes I succeed and other times I don’t. But poets who learn to give an effective reading of their poetry at open readings are poets who learn to project, inflect, and emphasize what they consider to be the key words and phrases in their poems. You can get so much more by hearing it than you can by reading it and when you do read the poem, after you’ve heard the poet himself read it, then you can actually hear the poet’s voice as you read the poem yourself. To me, that’s the best way to experience a poem.

Unlike many poetry videos, however, this one is not simply a recording of somebody on a stage reading from a book or performing a spoken word poem. Many of those are good, but this is performance poetry that isn’t ostentatious about the performance.

The poet is sitting in what appears to be a rather comfortable chair. He’s laid back, not tense, not in any way angry or verbally abrasive. He’s got a pleasant voice for reading, but he’s not at all what you would call “good to look at.” I mean, he’s not an attractive person, but he isn’t necessarily offensive looking either. He’s rather average looking and that only bears mentioning because his performance in no way is dependent upon him being attractive or appearing in any particular way. His performance pretty much just stands on its own.

The setting, as well, is quite appropriate. You see a curtain in the backdrop, and a mantle behind him. There’s a little clutter in the background and it looks like the poet is in a natural setting. A place that is comfortable for him yet reflects his “inner self.” It’s appropriate for the poem.

But the setting aside, and the poet’s appearance and comfort by the side, the real performance is in the voice because there is no action. Throughout the poem, he just sits. But, again, that’s appropriate for the conversational tone of the poem. His voice inflections, however, tell the entire story. Not in a pretentious way, but in a sincere telling of the poem. He pauses when he should, raises his voice at the appropriate times, and tells the poem as if you can truly believe this is the way feels. Maybe he feels that way or maybe he doesn’t; it could just be a performance. But he makes me believe that he feels that way about himself. And that’s what a good reading of a poem should do. It’s also what a video poem should do. It is a visual and auditory representation of the actual imagery and tone of a poem. And this poet captures that in both tone and voice, his telling as well as the visual representation. Everything works together. That’s what a poetry video should do.

At the end of this blog post you can see a video that I created myself for the poem “Siege.” It is nowhere near what I have in mind, but it’s a step (a small one) in that direction. This is a very raw production based on my limited skills, but it should give you some idea as to what I have in mind, sans the music score. All it really is is a video of an open mic poetry reading clipped to include a presentation of some photos that I took of the medieval walled fortress Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the subject of the poem. I don’t think I do it justice, but as I said, this is a start.

Dreamhouse Musical – An Off-Broadway
Poetic Experience
It has been brought to my attention that poet Barbara DeCesare’s book of poems jigsaweyesore is the basis of a new off-Broadway musical called “Dreamhouse.” The musical is a part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival and is the production of David Wolfson, who crafted the music, and Ari Laura Kreith, director. Other key people involved include:

• Musical Director/Piano: DANIEL FEYER
• Lighting Designer: JERI SYKES
• Stage Manager: LAUREN WALSH
• Publicity: SCOTTI RHODES

The musical’s cast are Suzan Postel, Maree Johnson, Jennie Eisenhower, Amy Hutchins, and Gayla D. Morgan. The musical promises to be full of wit and humor and observations on life, sex, love, and “the kind of soft sadness that never dips into maudlin theatrics” (Kessa De Santis).

The event is scheduled to run from July 21 to August 5, 2008 and will be held at The Workshop Mainstage located at 312 W. 36 St., 4th Floor, NYC. For more information you can call (212) 868-4444 or check out the website at www.smarttix.com.

Note: This information came to me via e-mail and I can’t vouch for its accuracy. I consider the source a credible source, but the website above currently doesn’t have any information on this event and I have another website address for the musical itself that currently doesn’t appear to be live. I will try to get more information on the event. It does look like one worthy of attendance.

Siege – Poetry Video
And now, without further ado, I bring you “Siege,” the video:

Correction: Dreamhouse Musical was a 2005 production. In the original e-mail I received on this production, I didn’t notice the year and have recently found out that the sender sent it to me as an FYI and not necessarily as a promotional release. Now that I know more about this, I wish I had seen it.