I'm the featured reader at the White House Revival Poetry reading in Limerick on Wednesday next. I'm putting together my "set" for the event. Difficult to choose poems. Greatest Hits? The latest masterpieces? It's a daunting gig with a history of fine readers. I visited there last November and read two poems in the open mic. They do the open mic section first then the featured writers. This means that the audience has heard quite a number of poems already and the standard has been set to challenge the guest.
A bit of humour in the poems would go down well but I'm afraid humour is scarce in mine. Something to think about for the future. Then there's the introductions. "This poem needs no introduction" is pretty bad. The audience who will hear the poem once need to be prepared so that they get full value form the reading. On the other hand you can't tell them all about the poem, no point in reading it then!
Anyway it's a challenge.
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4 comments:
I see you've been there before, so enjoy it. I hate putting together a set, I always change my mind on the night! Best of luck anyway and say hello to Dominic & Barney for me.
Congrats. One piece of advice someone gave me was not to make the intro longer than the actualy poem!
How d'you get the gig?
I'd definitely go for greatest hits and most advice I've read is that each poem should need a short introduction that doesn't weigh down the subsequent poem.
However, I've never been invited to read a selection of my work, so this is really advice from a literary minnow!
As Barbara says, I think the main thing is to enjoy it. Will it be recorded?
Dominic sends out information regularly on the readings and asks anyone interested in reading to contact him. I did.
You can hear many of the readings on YouTube. Search for white house poetry.
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