Picking Poems for Readings/Performances

[Guest rusticmonk86]

Does anyone else have difficulties picking out poems for readings or slams or performances?

I've got something tonight and I spent the last two days wondering what I'm going to read. I'm not really asking for help or anything. More curious to find out who else performs their stuff. And what they do when they've gotta choose between the new stuff, or the tried and true.

[Jason Rimbaud]

It depends on the venue. If its a place I've been and the audience knows my work, I tend to try out new material. I'd rather try and fail at a place where others know my previous work. The judging is never as harsh.

And if its a new venue, I tend to stick to my tried and true pieces. The ones I'm comfortable performing. Though that might be a lie, I'm never comfortable performing my own work. I think I'm a pussy.

[Guest rusticmonk86]

yeah, but my heart isn't in my tried and true stuff anymore. everything except for I Found Myself on a Dirt Road, just because that's so strong and obviously . . . classic.

but this is a big event. so i guess i should stick to the nonrhyming poems or something. i dunno. i don't want to alienate myself from the audience by trying something contraversial. but i don't want to be stuck reading "abstention proclaimation" for the rest of my fucking life, while letting all this new stuff I never got the chance to say slip through.

so i guess this is more than just picking out poems, and more towards being comfortable as a performer. not just being able to seperate the creator from it all. plus if i read anything from the wagon burner series or anything else like that, it'll bomb. (like the last two times, ugh!) i could pick something really old. i just odn't know how people can chrun out 10 million poems about:

i am the mountain

slowly moving towards the sun

settling on faults

which is actually a poem i've had in my head . . . i dunno how long now.

or---

i

am

someone who's name you recognize

because

i

read

in such--

trite and ob--

viously lame but--

widely accepted

mono.tonal

BREAKS

it is not important

to hear the words

but to EXPERIENCE them

through a difficult to understand

that's it's I'm reading behold the urinal. LOL.

thanks, Jason

[blue]

Hey, try something new if your heart's not in doing something older. When I read or hear something, I just want it to move me and say something. Yes, if you haven't been happy with the responses from before, definitely try something you haven't read before.

Don't stress. You're good at poetry. Heh, if they're expecting bland, or if they're not listening, that's their prob. Go be you.