November 17, 2023
Virtual readings via Zoom will no doubt continue to enhance a dialogue between contemporary poets and their audiences for the rest of the decade; but poetry readings with “live” audiences in which listeners are physically sharing the same room at a specific geographical conjunction not dependent on IP are once again the dominant form of poetry presentations. In the past four months, for instance, I’ve been part of a half-dozen live poetry events. The first was organized by Lynne Thompson, and was called “A Day of Poetry in L.A.” at the Downtown Public Library. That was followed by a pair of readings at Page Against the Machine, the first of which celebrated the BEAT NOT BEAT anthology, and the second was a reading with Long Beach legend Fred Voss.
Then, sandwiched in between a reading a the Sacramento Poetry Center in mid-October and this past Thursday night’s reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery in David, California, I read with Michael C. Ford at Dizzy on Vinyl records store on East Seventh Street in Long Beach. In contrast, I’ve only been part of one Zoom event, which was a celebration of the poetry of Harry E Northup broadcast by Beyond Baroque.
Regardless of this swing back to in-person events, the internet is allowing cultural workers to complement the live events with recorded materials that are easily accessible. The organizer and host of the reading in Davis, Professor Andy Jones, interviewed me the afternoon before, and has posted the interview as a podcast.
You can find it at:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1912726/13982763
Thank you, Andy, for a chance to share my work with your audience.
About Bill Mohr