ENTRY 4/365
My show last night was a great time. If you read my entry from yesterday, then you know my day didn’t start off as well as I would have liked. I was really bummed out until Darren picked me up. He drove down from Logan to get me, then brought me back, acquiring coffee along the way. Yeehaw! That’s 1.5 hours each way. Luckily the school was to reimburse him for his driving.
Our conversation began the moment I entered his vehicle and continued all the way to when I checked into the University Inn, room 521. Then he rushed off to a meeting. Darren Edwards is a kind man and very new to the performance poetry world. He did a 4-poem opener before me and I was impressed. His work, while very new, is obviously influenced by his 29 years on the planet and his time studying creative non-fiction at USU. He graduates this year. His performance style, while just beginning, is so fresh and unpolished. I really enjoyed watching him reach into himself and express his firm beliefs to the audience, which were all pretty much performance poetry virgins. We enjoyed Darren and they enjoyed my set.
I thought I needed to find my own ride to Logan, Utah from SLC, so I asked Jesse Parent if he knew any poets that might want to drive, so he introduced me to Darren via Facebook. He said Darren has been frequently driving down (from Logan and back!) to compete in the SLC slams and reading at the open mics just in the last year. He’s just getting better and better. He just missed out on accruing enough points to make the SLC slam final. I truly belive if Darren wishes to make the 2011 SLC National Team, he will undoubtedly do so.
MY FIRST PERFORMANCE EVER IN THE STATE OF UTAH
Last night was fantastic. Roughly 60 students all hanging out, listening to the McGee. A great way to introduce myself and my work to residents of Utah. The crowd made me feel so welcome and like I was doing my job well. I realize more and more now that it’s not the poetry that sells me, and not even the comedy per se, it’s more my personality. I am the product. People who know any of my work seem to come back to my live shows to hang out with new listeners and me on stage. I am always floored by people mouthing out lines and poems with me. Weird and humbling. I am so honored.
After the show, I went and ate some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had with 14 of the most beautiful Utans I could’ve met. Fantastic!
Good times had by all.
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Word to the nerd.
This entry was written by , posted on 11 March, 2010 at 10:10 AM, filed under Personal Updates and tagged performance, tour, utah state university. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.