Snack Time: What You’re Missing at the Open Mic
Several Weirdos Sharing Their Anxiety
I am not a person who is well-equipped to talk in front of a crowd. That’s true for many people, but especially so for those of us who prefer to filter their personality through writing. For us, it’s reassuring to know that if a sentence comes out wrong, we can just rewrite it, and rewrite it again, until we’re just as articulate and charming as we’ve always been in our heads. Sometimes it’s fun to imagine having a power like this in regular life, hitting the rewind button on a conversation whenever we feel like it. Though if I could, I think I’d still be sitting at my first job interview.
Anyway, you can understand why I don’t put myself in front of a microphone any more than is strictly necessary.
That’s why I remind myself each month, when I’m debating whether or not to go to the next poetry open mic at Woodland Pattern Book Center, that nobody’s there to see me. Actually, it’s hard to say why anyone comes to an open mic at all. For a poet (or a comedian, depending on the venue) it might be a chance to expose their work to the scrutiny of strangers. Or, if you’re confident that it’s a generous crowd, to earn a little applause. Some people probably come just to test their fear of public speaking, but I think many of them are looking for an outlet to vent. Whether it’s a recent breakup, a death in the family, or the humdrum bigotry they've been shrugging off their whole lives, a microphone may be the best remedy.
“Anyone have chronic pain?” said a tattooed woman before her reading.
“I promise this will be a happier one,” said a red-haired man just before reciting a poem about how his father never really accepted his queerness.
I’ve seen people cry on stage. I’ve listened to confessions that I’d hesitate to tell a therapist. I once watched a grey-haired man walk up and explain how he used to have ten poems memorized, but the older he gets, more of them are slipping away. He starts reading one of his favorites, and eight lines in, he laughs and apologizes for having to “cheat” and read off the page.
This might be difficult to appreciate if you don’t go, but it’s not a depressing event. We laugh through all of it, and not politely. We laugh the same as if we were sitting in our own living rooms, watching some idiot nearly snap their spinal column on a foam obstacle course.
Because something unexpected happens when a bunch of severely introverted weirdos get up and share their myriad anxieties. It’s hard to explain, but it sort of all gets added to one big pot, mixed together, and served back to us. When it’s over, you find that whatever hangups you walked in with are now diluted by the tattooed woman’s chronic pain, the red-haired guy’s issues with his dad, the old man’s slipping memory.
And yeah, I can already hear you asking, But Brad, is the poetry any good? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. I’m not an expert on poetry. What I can say with confidence is that nobody in the room was worrying very much about whether the poetry was good.
If you’re in Milwaukee, please join me at Woodland Pattern’s next open mic, 7 pm on June 30th. If you’re reading this from across state lines, I’m sure you can find one at a local bookstore or bar. You don’t have to be a poet or enjoy standing in front of crowds of people, I promise.