Last night my friends Jonathan and Sharon had a Show and Tell party at their house. It is an annual thing where friends gather to present projects they are working on or demonstrate talents. I used to be involved in the slam poetry scene and none of my Austin friends had ever seen me perform, so that’s what I decided to do. I still had two of the poems memorized. I guess I’ve done them enough that they’ve become etched into a ROM somewhere. The other two were on book.
One of the poems is always emotionally difficult to do, so I rarely read it. It’s a tricky thing: On the one hand, I want to read the poem over and over to get the emotional payload out of my system so that it won’t be a problem to do the piece. On the other hand, I’m talking about something real and personal and I don’t want to cheapen it into a performance. I made it through the poem with some difficulty. Apparently I will always have some tears left for the events that marked me most.
Set List: