[ramblings on being paid to write poetry]

this job is causing me to have to re-think my hard-line stance against writing for performance (vs. simply writing for the sake of poetry.) I've never had to do more than simply look at the work after it came into being (meaning, after it's written and edited) and say, this can work in performance or this is really best left to the page.

so it's been a luxury, really, just wallowing in my poet-ness, slamming poems I knew weren't supposed to score well according to popular strategy, pushing boundaries because what was at stake, really? losing a slam? big deal. I had so much room to experiment, find ways to make the emotions communicate even if the meanings weren't always obvious.

with poetry for work, of course, it's different. I find myself too often in the position of being the only one saying that we shouldn't underestimate our audience, but knowing that there's a pile of work in my living room that, while relevant to this project, will never make it into the show. too abstract, too strange, too soft, too tangential.

and beyond that, I'm writing (or trying to write) with so many parameters in mind: for tomorrow, I need a one-minute piece relevant to voting in some way that manages to be nonpartisan... oh, and could it "blaze" please?

and I can't complain. I mean really, I walked past a real estate office this evening, it was 8 p.m. and men were sitting in cubicles under fluorescent lights -- three blocks from the ocean. that's just torture. so I don't pity myself, let's be clear.

so I'm writing for performance, and trying to maintain integrity while doing so (and resisting Norman's notions that I should perform in spike heels -- but that's another story.) it's a strange thing, knowing that your best work is not what you should be aiming for.

I think this is different from choosing what poems to use in a slam or feature because those don't affect my writing. yes, I'm happy when a poem I love turns out also to be effective in performance (i.e., I'm able to find a way to perform it so that an audience gets something out of it that they wouldn't by simply reading it on paper.) but I'm not writing FOR slam or FOR a performance. now, that's my job.

I suppose my stance hasn't actually changed that much, except that I can no longer say I never write with performance vs. page in mind. it's still true, though, that what comes comes and the muse is fickle at best. hence the pile of poems that will never make it into the Declare Yourself show. hence the hope that a book will come of those.

and none of this is revelation. more procrastination, I suppose. sigh. it's 11:30 and the poem's not coming. it may be an early morning.