Resistance, Weeks 10 & 11
Shameless
You wouldn’t catch me dead at a poetry reading.
It’s not that I didn’t like poetry. Perhaps it was our family’s recording of Robert Frost reading his own poetry, which my sister and I would mock until we doubled over with laughter — wheezing out, “There is (labored inhale) something (long pause) that doesn’t love (labored inhale) a wall (fall over)” — that made me think an author’s voice would spoil it for me. I also imagined poetry readings to be some kind of contrived hipster ritual wherein everyone could congratulate themselves on how erudite they were while being bored to tears.
Once, I did go see Allen Ginsburg read, and I have to say it was amazing. But otherwise …
Then a friend, a poet I deeply admired, Dave Morrison, did a reading. I went out of friendship and became an addict. To give you a sense of Dave, here he is reading a poem, Viral Video, which I believe you will love. Hang in for the twist at the end. Dave’s a story teller.
Last Thursday evening, I attended a reading Dave gave at our local bookstore cum coffee house (clichés exist for a reason) to introduce his new book, Psalms. Which brings me to my shameless plug. After the reading, I asked Dave if he would be interested in joining Medium and submitting one of the poems he read, Statesmanship, to Resistance Poetry. He kindly obliged.
So, poets and poetry lovers, I encourage you to welcome Dave and give him a follow. You won’t regret it.
And now for the bi-weekly collection:
Patsy Starke , who was on a poetic tear
If anyone wonders how I decide to present the lineup in the collections, it is not completely random. I do my best to put new contributors first, followed by the rest, with myself last. I also generally place poets with only one work before writers with multiple works. My goal is to introduce new poets and do my best to make sure everyone’s work isn’t lost in the scroll. — Meg