On November 5, 2009 I was exposed to an form of art that I am not typically fond of, have barely any experience in, and had no intention to follow/pursue. I attended Macaulay’s Meet the Artist #6: poetry readings. Beforehand, I want to establish that I do not intend to create a fixed idea of the poets, their fans, and those who attend, and that this is my opinion. With that said I can finally say that I found borderline distasteful. No, no, I found myself with angst to get out of there and drink my coffee and delicacies that were promised at the end of the session. I attended it with my girlfriend, and several mutual friends, and I can easily say that even she got nothing out of it. And she’s the English lover!
I love science, and history. I have always tended to shy away from English and the “exploration” of the language exactly because I hate when people ‘explore it’ exactly how I saw it ‘performed’ that evening. Don’t get me wrong, I have attended Poetry Slams and do enjoy the occasional Whitman and Tennyson; I am very open to such things because I do want to give it the chance, but the themes and language use that night befuddled me. I do not doubt the talent of these writers of fiction and poetry, but they were way too overrated Macaulay! The guests were Hermine Pinson, Natalie Diaz, Jamaal ‘Versiz’ May, and Khadijah Queen. Ms. Queens was a speaker and master of ceremonies for the occasion, and her poetry was among the many that truly stood out to me as awkward and not inspiring. Among all four of the speakers I found Mrs. Hermine Pinson’s work to be the most moving, natural, and effective. The others strived too hard to make their work be accepted by the audience. Mrs. Pinson was able to move many in the audience with her memorable poem dedicated to her mother who died in a fire when she was young, named ‘Song’. Her fluid voice and the incorporation of actually singing in the poem left me leaving there a bit happier knowing I listened to truly an admirable woman. Not surprisingly, she was the oldest of the four and did not need to ‘enforce’ her words. She was soft and fluid and the words themselves were able to affect the listeners.
The other three poets chose too sick and profound of topics to concentrate on in order to affect the listeners. They were more vocally trained to read their own poetry than have it read. I personally find this sad. I want to be able to know how to feel the intended emotions as I read it and not need for it to be read to me by the poet to understand. There technique was exactly that. They focused on topics that would inevitable ‘hit’ us in the face like in-depth details of war, rape, abuse, and/or a personal way to speak the poem, to make their effect on the audience. I do not attack any of their credentials and/or experience, but I did not enjoy it. It did take on a more modern aspect of poetry which fixes itself around ‘slams’ and rhythm in one’s voice, but even as a partial fan of that, I did not like it. It was the material that disheartened me. Mrs. Prine was definitely the savior at that meeting. If it were up to me, invite her back to the next one, not the others, or entirely change the event to something where REAL artists can come.
