Setlist:
Learning to Read
A Real Young Girl
Sex is Comedy
To the Woman / Goldworm Sheaths
23 Erotic Dreams of Sarah Palin (w/ audience participation)
Prince Polyester
3 poems from Excess Exhibit
S & D
Unlearning to Read
First poem of the night, Learning to Read:
7 comments:
Kate, can I ask what the audience participation was for "23 Dreams?"
Hello Cy,
I changed the "I" in the poem to a plural "We"--a "We the people" reference. And then I had various people in the audience of different genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, etc. stand up and read various lines from the poem, to imply a sort of democratic mutually dreamed orgy.
Thanks for asking!
A "democratic mutually dreamed orgy" - that's fantastic :)
Thanks so much for all this, including the set list. I used that (the list) to sort of re-create the reading, by reading in your book (or on-line, in the case of the Palin poem) those that you read (except of course for the "new" (as yet unpublished) poems).
I thought it great that you began and ended with the Learning / Unlearning to Read poems. As you know, I live those two.
In my re-reading via your reading set list, the poem that newly came alive for me was "Prince Polyester." That's a strong poem. Probably I spent too much to much time in church as a little kid, but the lines that really haunt are:
Head bent
in prayer,
he caught me with my eyes up.
I also especially like in that poem the word "unclothed" that is then matched by the wind-bared earth" towards the end. It very effectively gets everything naked right before the three lines of the "only the body remembers" final section. (Buy the book, folks!)
Thanks again for sharing all this.
Great reading! (and outfit). I'd be interested in reading your book - I enjoyed the poems you have on your website.
Thanks so much for the kind words, everyone.
Steven, I love that you read through the entire setlist. I definitely had to include Learning / Unlearning--those two poems had special significance since this was my first book launch, and I'd been waiting for this day since I was 8 years old. And of course, the POEM peepshow went with Learning to Read--this notion of birthing poems/monsters.
Prince Polyester is one of my favorite poems in the book, and those lines you quoted ("caught me with my eyes up") are, in my opinion, the naughtiest lines in the poem. Way naughtier than the ending, which is more obviously shocking.
Andrea-thanks for your interest in the book. I noticed you are from NZ--I'm not sure if my publisher ships over there, but if you wanted to buy the book from me I'd be happy to give you a good deal and ship it out to you (and sign it of course). If interested, feel free to email me at kate_durbin@yahoo.com.
“Naughty” is a perfect word for those lines, that image: badly behaved, disobedient, mischievous, improper, lascivious.
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