Creating A New Normal, One Poetry Reading at a Time

Creating A New Normal, One Poetry Reading at a Time 

Michael Sedano

 Welcome to the new normal. Slowly, local arts awaken from a half decade of solitude behind closed windows and things that stopped being. Poetry readings and close-packed community gatherings disappeared, and with them the synergy that comes of poets and listeners in a live poetry gathering.

Toti O'Brien inaugurates resumption of Eagle Rock's Saturday poets' gathering.

The recent reading at Eagle Rock library, a branch of the Los Angeles city system, underscores the burgeoning new normal of poetry readings. 

Poets never stopped writing during the GOPlague-forced halt, and they hunger to read their work to audiences. Places never stopped being available to host readings. 

Nowadays, audiences wear, or don't wear, plague-phylactic face coverings. Audiences in distant locations virtually participate via telecommunications. In some instances, readers zoom their performance. In many cases, poets glue their eyes to a glowing screen and talk into their hand. More than ever before, Diversity matters because community matters.

The February second afternoon event, dubbed "Poetry Open Mic", resumes regular Saturday at 1 p.m. assemblies. The initial gathering post-plaguetime stoppage featured Toti O'Brien. The multitalented poet, sculptor, dancer, singer, "is known as the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Toti is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds(Moonrise, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022), The Past, Ineffable (Cholla Needles Press, 2023), Odd Arcana (Cholla Needles, 2023) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2024).

O'Brien reads expressively, freely allowing emotions forming inside her cerebral writing to flow out of her face and body into her rapt audience. There's no question of Toti O'Brien's musicality; at times her body dances the poem in time with the words.

American Sign Language translator Mona Jean Cedar recites with more than her full person. Her gestures, her hands, the position of her fingers speak expressions heard only by speakers of American Sign Language.

Cedar recites her own poem from memory, her body, arms, hands, face a single expressive element that creates a poem apart from yet because of the spoken word. For all the audience knows, gesture precedes verbal in this poet's work?

Audiences have a golden opportunity to ask themselves that when Mona Jean Cedar features at the next Eagle Rock "open mic" gathering. Watch La Bloga-Tuesday for details.

Hunger to speak, hunger to hear, hunger to be here with the local poetry scene were satified. Moderator Pat Cross at first announced seventeen sign-ups, then added a couple of late-arrivers and the "open mic" turned out to be 18  readers. An equal number attended to sit and enjoy. Some hollered and clapped for familiar poets not seen since before the GOPlague shut-down. Reunion and joy, two essential elements of community abound today.

Who knew there's an Eagle Rock poetry scene? How about your local community?

Moderator Pat Cross

Why shouldn't there be? Put out an open call, reserve free space in the local library, and open the doors on time.

Given that there's been a long time between readings, it's a good reminder to work with what happened, plan the next one. There will be a next time, the country is opening up. It's a new normal. 

Let the new part be how you read your stuff aloud, gente.

Poets and organizers benefit from writing down: three concrete elements that satisfied goals. Enumerate three concrete elements that will benefit from change, stuff not to do again, do more of, do less of. Next reading, you have a set of goals because you conducted a thorough post-joy analysis.

Foto Gallery

This gallery of Eagle Rock open mic poets challenges readers to remember two pointers: when there's a camera in the house, look into the lens now and then, and the rest of the reading, make eye contact, eye contact, and more eye contact.

Here's a La Bloga-Tuesday column dedicated to reading off a manuscript (link).