Salons that actually make you beautiful

I had a life once, really, and in that life I used to host readings in my apartment. People would come. It was BYOB (which my dad used to tell me meant; this isn't a party for kids). People would drink their beer. People except my lovely friend in this picture, who was pregnant and wrote only poems about pregnancy when she was pregnant. She said it was a craving.

Anyway, people would read poems...it was nice.


The rest of us would listen and politely applaud, but only when appropriate. One night only one person showed up. We got drunk (nobody to share our beer with, you see). We stayed until quite late reading William Carlos Williams' "Paterson" to each other. We had modernist fantasies. Which reminds me...I saw a poster the other day that said, "Mo' Dernity, Mo' Problems." I laughed at it. But not in a mean way. I think the poster still felt pretty good about itself.

Anyway, the point of all this is to illustrate the importance of not always GOING to poetry readings. Sometimes the most excellent thing you can do is BRING a poetry reading home. This is why I like Dottie Lasky's "Tiny Tour" so much...home is a good place for poetry. It makes sense at home, at least more sense than it does at a contemporary coffee shop. Yes, I get the historical thread tying poetry to them, but its a dead scene, man. And now that poetry isn't welcome in most other performing areas, home allows you to make a place for it, fill that place with good people, and to get it out there. Plus, you only need two things; a stool, and a music stand, and almost everybody has those things lying around...right?