More Than One Langauge Does Help

Some of us poets have been talking about the nature of the reading--its form and why we go and what we hope to get out of going. I decided to look outside of poetry and asked Chloë Bass, Artist and Public Practitioner, for help with these questions. Through a series of conversations, we created a moment in the reading where the people in the audience had an opportunity to talk to each other and think out some of their responses to the poems they were listening to. Additionally, the thing about poetry readings is the audience is normally filled with the type of people who go to poetry readings. I not only wanted to give them an opportunity to think through some of the themes of the work with each other, but I wanted to give myself the opportunity to learn from/hear back their ideas.  Here's a short video of what Chloë and I came up with and some of the audience responses.