Reading At Pruneyard Bookstore

Barnes & Noble is community-minded enough to allow our club, South Bay Writers, to have a reading there every month. Five us read and listened when the others read. I read four short poems from my new collection, Fine Lines of Mine (see previous post) plus about eight minutes worth out of a short story I wrote three years ago. (I need to sit down and really polish that one to a fine sheen; cutting out 50% of the words might be a good place to start.)

I thought my story, Teen Trials #17, was pretty sensitive and realistic "first-date" dialog--that was my story's situation, so that's a good thing. But it did get a little too explicit with sex, at least it felt that way with this small audience (four people). The audience felt like it started to squirm and that made me feel squeemish about reading on more.

With the recent honest, sometimes harsh-feeling feedback I've received from editors working with me on my novel, I'm likely getting a better feeling for my ideal audience and what kind of explicitness is going too far. (I want to go further. However, the reality today is different. A lot of great short story publishers will put up with the implicit quick sexual innuendo, but not long dwellings on love-making, in detail, or explicit naming of body parts, etc.) If my story is not mainly a sex instruction book, it works against the meat of my story to get too detailed and dwell too long there. I felt that tonight, and there probably is no other way to get that kind of extremely useful information. I call it "listening through the ears of the others."

I need to rewrite Teen Trials #17--tonight, even!--to keep the good stuff and trim off the less than good. I'm not saying never to have sex in your short stories, but make sure it is appropriate to your ideal reader and the probable publisher and award committees that you wish to impress. In the 60s, it was different. We have a more conservative audience these days, so, a word to the wise...

At tonight's reading, the main trouble (ignoring that the microphone had a low frequency hum that would crescendo out of control if you breathed on it) was there were not enough listeners sitting in the chairs out there. Thus, there was less chemistry, less buzz, less feedback and less heart and warm bodies out there. At our readings, listeners are often the readers--that was the case tonight--so we also didn't have enough authors or prospective authors reading. Too bad.

Did you ever throw a party and no one came?  It was a little bit like that.

If you'd like to bolster our crowd or you write and need to get used to reading in front of people (in a interested, supportive atmosphere) you should come. It's usually 3rd Friday of each month, Pruneyard Barnes & Noble open microphone, 7:30PM, sponsor: California Writers Club, South Bay Branch.

See you there... I hope. Bring something newly written to test out on us.

Post Mortum of a Poetry Reading

Hey, I had a very fun time reading poetry at the Poetry Center San Jose, reading at the Arts Object Gallery. Thank you Linda Lappin, and to Ken, who had the refreshments and provided his gallery. I think the audience enjoyed it, too. They laughed at all the right places, seemed thoughtful, seemed sad at the right places, and when they threw rotten tomatoes at me, none of them landed.

I tood advantage of a chance during break to chat with a few other poets, small-talk, really–my word, I'm horrible at trying to remember names–I stumbled upon no new earth-shaking secrets. The other reader was a Santa Cruz poet, Dana Cervine, a good reader, but he was a little shy in his commentary, so I heard very little of that. It must have been pretty good because he smiled and laughed a lot. (Dana's day job involves working and managing in children’s mental health for Santa Cruz County.) As I was about to say, I should have the nerve to tell these well-meaning, talented folks to speak up. This fellow has had lots of experience and he seems to spend most of his life writing poems, even does it driving sometimes, if I’m to believe wild stories. If I did that, turn out say a poem a day, most of mine wouldn’t make sense, hance, pretty much be a bunch of drivel, absent of profundity. I come up with a couple of poem-worthy ideas most days--maybe that's a false impression--and I don't have time to put a pen to everything. How is it worth the effort if it isn’t clever or very good, stunning, hitting the listener between the eyes? I don't think anybody gets to be a millionaire writing poetry, no matter how good it is. You have to love the process, the readings, and the marketing of your work. I love my work; it gets rather polished and on-target, given the time for it to mature and bake up tall, brown, sweet, and tasty.

What are you doing Tuesday?

I will be reading my best works on the first Tuesday of October. Here's a reminder for anyone who wants to hear 20 minutes of entertaining, thoughtprovoking, easily understood poetry. Please do attend, smile, cry, throw vegetables, whatever, or just say "hi." For details, read on.

-- Richard Burns Reads His Poetry --

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009, 7:30PM

Art Object Gallery
592 North 5th Street
San Jose, CA 95112
http://www.artobjectgallery.com/index.html
(It’s near Jackson Street.)

I've been invited by Linda Lappin, Vice President of PCSJ, to open their Tuesday evening open mike. I will read Award Winners "Cold Temptation" and "TV Is Somethin' " and more. My works include two poems published in the South Bay Writers inaugural anthology, Who Are Our Friends? and Other Works by South Bay Writers, edited by Meredy Amyx, including "America, Don't Pass Me By."

There is an open mike scheduled, one poem from each reader, I think, after my part of the evening.

The evening is sponsored by PCSJ (Poetry Center San Jose ), a poetry club dedicated to the art of poetry and supporting the works of local poets. Find out more about the sponsor at http://pcsj.org/ .

-Richard
A small map:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Art+Object+Gallery&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1