March 9, 2003.
Poetry Party


A few weeks ago my friend Beth and I decided to do something very grown-up. We threw a Poetry Party.

We prepared elaborate invitations which featured a selection from Mark Strand's celebrated poem, "Eating Poetry" and mailed them to a tiny handful of friends that we thought would enjoy the event.




We scheduled it for a Saturday night. We told people to bring some poetry with them to read aloud for the group. Something they wrote, something they found — didn't matter, as long as it was good.

Friends, we got what we wanted, and then some.

We were delighted to discover that pretty much everyone we invited caught the spirit of the event right away and was truly thrilled to participate. The invitation to the poetry event was, in fact, an invitation for them to get re-acquainted with those old college anthologies and high school texts they had enjoyed years ago. It was the spark they needed to dig into the poetry section at the library, and pore over dozens of poems, and find just the right selection to share with the group. The invitation invigorated a love for poetry that had long lain dormant.

One thing I discovered is that I really, really, really like reading poetry aloud for friends. (Maybe even a little too much — do you suppose my friends would tell me if I was just plain annoying?) Perhaps I am trying to channel the muse of my beloved Edna St. Vincent Millay. When I'm reading poetry I want to smoke cigarettes and swagger and swoon, to set the universe on fire and then douse the flames with a whisper.

I suppose that I discovered a surprising power in my own voice at the poetry party. I don't do well with small talk and I am not terribly articulate when stating my own beliefs, but if you give me a really good script to read, well, I start to catch fire.

The poetry party was a way for my friends and me to have a meaningful experience based around words. Not a passive experience, like you get sitting in a movie theatre, but one in which we took the lead. We chose the key and we wrote the song. And it turned out to be really beautiful.



Here's some evidence from the poetry party evening. I'm not sure exactly why I'm including this photo here — it certainly doesn't capture the subdued glory of the evening. However, it does make me chortle. Beth on the left, me in the center, Mark on the right. We gathered in Beth's bathroom for photos after the event, and perched on the edge of the tub for this shot.





After we stepped away from the bathtub, Beth and I enjoyed putting on our best Serious, Pretentious Poet faces for this picture. (Looks like we just finished reading "The Wasteland.")

I have high hopes that the poetry party will be a regular event with me and my friends. Robert Frost wrote some years ago that "poetry is a temporary stay against confusion," and in this day and age, his words are truer than ever. I'm surprised by how very much I needed and appreciated the evening of reading, of hearing surprising words of tenderness and boldness and passion and joy from friends. Something tells me I will need to hear them again soon.