Why Go to a Poetry Reading?

Or "How I Was Inspired by the Dave Matthews Band"

Last weekend, I went to a Dave Matthews Band concert with my husband. My husband has come to love DMB concerts, so my younger daughter very kindly bought tickets for us as a Father’s Day gift.

I had already been to one DMB concert a couple of years ago, and then as now, I was amazed by the devotion of the band’s fans. There were fans with the band’s dancing woman logo tattooed onto various parts of their bodies. There were fans who tailgated all day before the concert. There were fans who counted their attendance at DMB concerts in the double and even triple digits.

At the same time, for that first concert, we were newbies who had just brought a blanket to sit on and were surprised when the entire audience stood up upon hearing the first note of the first song and stayed up for the duration of the concert, totally blocking our view. We got beer spilled on us by other concert-goers and a second-hand high from all the weed being smoked. We could not see even the Jumbotron screens, and the music was painfully loud. Even so, we enjoyed the music and could see we had stumbled onto a true cultural phenomenon.

This time, we were better prepared. We came early to better position ourselves on the lawn. We rented lawn chairs. We could see the big screens and even the stage. The music was loud but not ear-ringing. People tossed inflatable beach balls and glow sticks, weaving the audience of thousands of all kinds of Americans together into a community for a few hours. We really felt the love of the DMB Family and started to understand why true fans love going to shows over and over again.

Of course, the band itself ensures a huge value-added component to its concerts. It has a different set list at each performance, and various websites even track which songs they play, what order they play them in, which song they start with, which song they end with, and how many encores they have. The band does unexpected covers of other group’s famous songs. Different members of the band launch into long improvisational solos on most tracks, and well-loved hits are even combined and transformed on stage. The screens project very cool live special effects, so you might see a sparkling Tim Reynolds or a psychedelic Rashawn Ross up on the screen as they play in real time. Dave Matthews himself commented at the end of the show on the recent tragic killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE and played a song in which he commented on the unfairness of the rigged economy while accompanying himself on a ukulele. The richness of the DMB catalog and their devotion to making every show different inspire wild loyalty among devotees and encourage a culture in which those who love the DMB want to go to numerous shows a year.

These fans could, of course, just stay home and listen to their favorite DMB music on CD or Spotify or even on the SiriusXM channel devoted to all things DMB. However, it’s just not the same, and untold thousands of Daveheads spend time and money to see the band live because they know they get something extra by seeing an artist they love perform live.

The same should be true at a poetry reading. Anyone can pick up a book and read it, but at a reading, you should be getting some behind-the-scenes intel on the author’s life or what went into a particular poem. You should be able to hear in the author’s voice excitement and a performance of the lines, rather than just a rote recitation. There should be time for genuine interaction with the audience.

Yesterday, I had my first solo reading in support of my new book, The Enchantress Queen and The Ghost Who Made Me, and I let the Dave Matthews Band inspire me as I prepared. I got to the venue early and talked to the first audience members to show up. They shared many things with me. Some wrote poetry as a hobby. Some confessed that they had never really liked poetry because of the way it was taught to them in school. Some had never been to a poetry reading before. Some had read my book and told me how deeply it had affected them. Someone asked if I would be reading any poems mentioning Bob Dylan for some reason, which actually led me to change my set list at the last minute because I do indeed have one such poem. It was a beautiful moment of connection.

I did my reading, telling short stories before some poems, and then opened the floor for audience questions. These were terrific. Several people wanted to know about my writing process. Some wanted to know more about the people I discussed in my poems. Some wanted to know more about me. Some wanted to know what kinds of coursework my MFA degree entailed. Several told me they had been moved to tears by the poems. Then we had the book sale and signing, and this was also another opportunity for connecting with people. I left the reading on a real high. I had shared my writing with people, and it landed. I made new friends, sold a bunch of books, and most importantly, gave people a reason to come together in community.

Poetry at its best allows us to think about what is true in life and forces us to ask and answer questions of ultimate meaning. What better way to fight the isolation and meaninglessness of so much of today’s culture than to join other souls as they listen to a poet share their work? Go to a poetry reading and see what you can gain—it’s so much better than just reading the book, just like going to a Dave Matthews Band concert is so much better than just listening to his CD. You just might find that sense of community you have been looking for

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