the church of poetry

"the heart,
which, when caught in certain lights,
combusts and flies apart,
like rhubarb, or the night's

remains; like bear traps rusted open long,
like song"

- excerpt from Ander Monson, "At Night My Armless Brother's Heart
Sounds Like This: Systole and Diastole"

I saw Ander Monson and the amazing Nick Lantz at a reading last week. The youthful "Monsters of Poetry" series, less than a year old, is already routinely providing the best poetry in town. It was so crowded that latecomers were forced to sit on the floor, right up front at the
foot of the stage, and it was kind of churchy, sitting all uncomfortably sore-assed, staring up (or sometimes across the floor, at the patterns of the wood grain, the poet's shoes, whatever) in silence while the works were read. Another day where I wanted to say "Mmmm yeah, sir, sing it" at key lines, not just chuckle or murmur the way people do when they like a line in a poem but it's not time to applaud yet. I get frustrated with the so-called distinction between High Art and Low Art and the way you cannot shout out your love of a phrase at poetry "readings" but can at poetry "slams." It's true that there are poems that take a lot of attention, quiet meditative
woodgrain-staring, yes, where a well-placed wolf whistle would distract other audience members. But those aren't the ones where I find myself wanting to be loudly appreciative anyway. Sometimes words, bare words, unadorned by rhythm or music, still are worth getting up and dancing to.

But then you have to start talking about what a reading "should" be anyway, which is a huge discussion and I'd rather just say, "Art is art and not actually my professional field and I'm just going to go back to my corner and write some poems in my free time and let other people argue about what things 'should' be."